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Summary overall doc, National consultations on water

2013 Water Dialogue

Climate change and the increasing number of competing water users have led to the overexploitation of the Pangani river basin resources. Action has been taken to establishing environmental, economic and social implications of different river flow scenarios under expected climatic conditions. This helped to prioritize the allocation of water resources to meet basic human needs and those of ecosystems. The main lesson learnt was that providing a platform for dialogue between key stakeholders and increasing knowledge about the climatic variability and future risk are essential for successful water management solutions.

The first step of working towards water security is to understand the nature and the scope of the resource itself. That means taking a holistic view of the water resources in a given country or region and relating those to their use by society and the environment. For that, demand and supply need to be assessed and data on the physical and the socio-economic aspects of the resource gathered. It is also important to understand how policies are performing, which is why indicators for IWRM should be developed and used for monitoring and evaluation.