News and Activities

A Regional Day under the theme of “Improved Efficiency for Increased Resilience to Climate Change: an Integrated Water Resources Management Perspective”, and a seminar on “Different Capacities, Different Roles – Empowering South Asian Women for Climate Change Adaptation” were jointly organised by GWP South Asia, GWP-India and WAPCOS Ltd at the recently concluded India Water Week 2013 held in New Delhi, India. Both events witnessed a large number of participants and lively panel discussions. The South Asia Climate Resiliency and Water Security Programme (WAter and Climate REsilience Programme – WACREP) was also launched as part of the Regional Day.

It is estimated that with 2.5 % of global landmass, India has 4% of the world’s freshwater resources. This has come under increasing demographic stress since India is home to about 16% of the global population. To build public awareness around water, the Ministry of Water Resources of the Government of India has created India Water Week as a platform for involving stakeholders.

Climate change in Bangladesh is critical and according to National Geographic, Bangladesh ranks first as the most vulnerable nation to the impacts of climate change in the coming decades.

A National Round Table conference on Water Use Efficiency was organized by IELO at New Delhi on 27th February, 2013. The National Round Table mainly focused on “Model National Framework on Water Use Efficiency” for the National Bureau with regard to industry, commercial, domestic urban sectors.

In 2010, the devastating floods in Pakistan directly affected about 20 million people, mostly by destruction of property, livelihood and infrastructure. GWP Pakistan is now collaborating with UNESCO to launch a project in cooperation with the Government of Japan that aims to upgrade the flood forecasting and early warning systems of Pakistan, and to conduct risk mapping of flood plains along the Indus River.

A Young Water Professionals Symposium (YWPS) under the theme of “Towards a water secure future” was organised by the Sri Lanka Water Partnership (SLWP) with the sponsorship of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and Unilever Sri Lanka.

Gender equity and women’s empowerment in water resources management is one of the cornerstones of the Dublin-Rio principles on which the GWP network is founded, and is accepted as one of the essential pillars to poverty eradication and sustainable development.

More than 55% of India’s population is practicing agriculture in climate sensitive areas; 53% of the area suffers from serious degradation; 30 million hectares of land experience haphazard grazing and the fall in per capita availability of water is 70 percentage points.

To stimulate new thinking to improve Sri Lanka’s natural resources management, the first Young Water Professionals Symposium for the country was organized by GWP Sri Lanka in association with IWMI and Unilever on 22-23 November in Colombo with the participation of the Hon Minister of Water Supply and Drainage Dinesh Gunawardene and Prof Mohan Munasinghe, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2007 (IPCC), and over 150 participants.

The Technical Report on issues related to water and agriculture in South Asia authored by GWP South Asia was launched recently.