The adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 is an opportunity to explain why the integrated approach can contribute to meeting the SDGs, particularly since SDG #6 is all about water – and calls for the implementation of integrated water resources management at all levels.
After a meeting held with the new Technical Committee (TC) chair in November in Ouagadougou, a larger meeting with the Chair, all Technical Committee members and the staff of the Executive Secretariat was organized in Bamako on 13 to 15 December 2017. The meeting served as a platform for GWP-WA TC members to engage with the Chair and Executive Secretariat on how to work together to advance GWP work at the regional level and in countries in West Africa.
Under the Strategic Goal 1 Catalyze Change, the WACDEP Programme of GWP China Region stresses cross-regional cooperation, sector plan optimization, investment on recycling renewable resources, south-south promotion and a good lesson of utilizing the water rights market.
The official ceremony was chaired by Mr. Drissa Samaké, technical advisor to the Ministry of Energy and Water. This year, Mali is celebrating the event in a particularly alarming context. According to the Deputy Director General of Hydraulics, Mr. Djorou Bocoum, water stress has never been so present in Mali since 1984. Rivers usually withdraw in January, but this year, he explains, they began to withdraw in September.
New challenges related to water have strongly emerged in the Mediterranean like those linked with increased migration flows due to conflict, social unrest and degradation of natural resources and well as changing consumption patterns. Linked with these, employment challenges, particularly for the younger generation and women, remain central and in need of long term approaches and substantial action.
