On November 30, 1 and 2 December, the CWP Benin held in Parakou, a training session on IWRM and the integration process in the planning tools at local level targeting the elected officials and local stakeholders in the municipalities where WASH-Benin Program makes its interventions. The activity was financially supported of WASH-Benin Programme on the one hand with the technical facilitation of CWP Benin.
The training session aims to contribute to the implementation of IWRM at the local level through its integration into the municipal planning tools. It brought together some thirty participants from the water and sanitation services; Local Development and Planning; Monitoring and Evaluation of municipalities of Banikoara, Kandi, Kérou, Kouandé, Malanville, Parakou and Sinendé accompanied by some local officials.
With the context of decentralization through which the state has transferred some of these skills to the municipalities including the environmental management and water-related services and sanitation and the new institutional framework of IWRM validated in Benin in 2014 in Benin, the municipalities have a key role to play in the implementation of IWRM at the local level.
With the gained experience of IWRM pilot initiatives conducted by the CWP Benin in certain pilot municipalities, CWP-Benin documented IWRM integration approach in the planning tools at local level to the effectiveness of IWRM. Thus, this training session helped i) share with participants the situation of water resources in Benin, issues and water management challenges at the local level; ii) inform them about the IWRM concept, its adoption process in Benin and the status of IWRM implementation and the prospects; iii) show them the IWRM integration process in the local development planning; iv) share with them the experience of municipalities that have integrated IWRM in their planning documents and support them to propose actions to implement the kinds of IWRM activities to be implemented in their municipalities one hand and develop an IWRM integration roadmap in development plan for 2017 through the updating of Communal Development Plans (PDC) which starts in 2016.
The training session had a very active participation of the now well-equipped participants to improve their knowledge on municipal water resources to facilitate their management through the integration of IWRM action in the planning tools.