L@ Chronique April 2016

The 2015 progress report takes stock of the implementation of the activities, draws main lessons learnt and states key messages of fruitful collaboration with partners during the years. Please, download the document

A training of trainers capacity building workshop was held from 25 to 29 April 2016 on "drought risk reduction in the context of Integrated Water Resources Management" with the financial and technical support of Cap-Net. The course content focused on six (6) modules on Overview of drought / occurrence of droughts, vulnerability and IWRM (Module 1), Vulnerability and impacts of droughts (Module 2), Managing the risks of drought (Module 3), Characterization of droughts, temporal and special scale, monitoring and forecasting ((Module 4), Strategic Planning in IWRM for risk management of drought (Module 5), Preparing for drought, emergency management and post drought recovery (6. Module 6).

The Integrated Drought Management in West Africa (IDMP WA) Project Officer visited Torodi, Niger from 13 to 16 April 2016. She was accompanied by the Permanent Secretary of the Niger CWP and the person in charge of communication to visit the demonstration pilot site in Kankantouti, a village of the rural municipality of Torodi.

The CWP Guinea was visited by a team of consultant working on the evolutions in the Senegal basin transboundary environemental diagnosis analysis developed in 2006 and the need for revising it. The discussions included also how the CWP could play a more active role in the second phase of the IWRM programme (PGIRE) of OMVS, the present state of the Senegal basin, present trends of hydrological data in the basin, the environmental degradation and the Gender mainstreaming.

The first draft of the national studies in Benin, Burkina and Niger on the identification of development priorities in the Mekrou Basin have been submitted to the Project Manager. These drafts were forwarded to the Project Management team as well as to the international consultant recruited by GWPO to make a coherence in the national studies. The international consultant is to ensure the national consultants’ work comply with the Terms of Reference and create a coherence between the three studies.

As part of the efforts to strengthen the management of the Ghana Country Water Partnership secretariat to develop a strong presence in the water sector, a reference center has been created at the secretariat.

The Ghana Country Water Partnership (CWP-Ghana) was represented by the Communications Officer at a one-day seminar under the theme “Our Water, Our Life: Ghana’s Water Resources in Crisis.” This seminar was organised by the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) at the conference room of the Science and Technology Research Institute of the CSIR on 19^th April, 2016.

Ghana Country Water Partnership (CWP-Ghana) organised a two (2) days interaction session with the communities and institutions involved in the water security and climate resilient development field demonstration project. This was a follow up to the discussions held with the implementing partners in November, 2015. This took place on 12^th and 13^th April, 2016. The visit was carried out by the Communications Officer of WACDEP Ghana and members of the Project Coordination team from the White Volta Basin Office led by the Project Assistant of the Coordination Unit.

The Gambia Country Water Partnership (GCWP) is the youngest of the CWPs in West Africa (officially launched in December 2011) is yet to complete its accreditation process as a partner of Global Water Partnership (GWP). Some actions were undertaken since 2014 which didn’t get through. To facilitate the exchange process with country partners in The Gambia, the Executive Secretary decided that the Communication manager goes to Banjul and prepares with them all the needed documentation for the accreditation to be done as soon as possible.

GWP WA is one of the Focal points of the African Water Information and Documentation System (AWIS) managed by the ANBO through its Strengthening the Institutions of Transboundary Basins Organizations (SITWA) Project based at the OMVS in Dakar, Senegal. The workshop was to identify the main directions for a work plan addressing the identified needs and gaps of the African Water Information System (AWIS).