While it was the 4th Technical Workshop held for the Programme, it was the first one since the announcement of a 2-year, £9 million gift to GWP’s Climate Resilience Programmes from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). It was also the first time that the workshop was attended by the Reference Group (RG), a panel of experts that provides technical oversight and support to regions and countries to implement WACDEP.

The workshop featured sessions on scaling-up finance for sustainable water infrastructure, revisiting the monitoring and evaluation framework as well as a review the financial guidelines, and initiating a communication and knowledge management strategy. Participants were presented with the WACDEP capacity building programme and discussed implementation activities for that programme which will run from 2013-2014.

Nehal Adel Mohamed, the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) President of AMCOW, emphasized the significance of transnational stakeholder cooperation on integrating water security and climate resilient in development planning processes in Africa. GWP is implementing WACDEP in Africa on behalf of AMCOW.

AMCOW’s country Focal Points and TAC members from the eight WACDEP target countries attended the workshop along with partners such as Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA), Climate & Development and Knowledge Network (CDKN), UNDP Capacity Building for Sustainable Water Resources Management (CapNet), HR Wallingford, and NIRAS.

Participants welcomed the partnership and collaboration between GWP and the ICA on the WACDEP. The ICA will support GWP regions on the project preparation and financing component.

‘Preparation of bankable water projects remains a constraint and is one of the causes of underinvestment in Africa’s water sector and this needs to be addressed’, said Sonja Hoes, ICA Finance Specialist.

UNDP-CapNet Director Dr. Bekhithemba Gumbo emphasised the importance of capacity building and announced its ambition to support WACDEP in capacity building especially at the regional and transboundary level. The CapNet contribution would complement the on-going collaboration on capacity building between GWP and CDKN. The CDKN is supporting development of institutional capacity for integrating water security and climate resilience into development plans.

As part of the workshop and in an important knowledge sharing exercise, GWP regional offices presented their 2013 work plans at regional and country level, giving AMCOW and other partners the opportunity for input.

HR Wallingford trained participants in the Strategic Framework for Water Security and Climate Resilient Development in addition to the concepts, methods and approaches in the Technical Background Document for the Framework.Further details on the 4th WADCEP Technical Coordination Meeting and programme may be downloaded here, or contact GWP Southern Africa
c/o IWMI 141 Cresswell St
Weavind Park
Pretoria, South Africa
Phone: +27 12 845 9119 (direct office line)
Fax: +27 12 845 9110
Email: a.takawira@cgiar.org