After the Municipal / Communal and Local elections which took place in Benin leading to the renewal of decision-making bodies at municipal level, the CWP Benin has initiated a training session on the advocacy techniques for local water stakeholders. The participants included members of the National Association of Users of the national portion of the Niger Basin (UNA-Benin, the Consultation Framework of non-state actors in the water sector and sanitation (Canea), the Local Water Partnerships (PLE) of Mono and Couffo, the Consumers Associations of Drinking Water (CAPE) and the social intermediation NGOs
Given the importance of WRCC in coordinating water resource management in West Africa in particular and that of ECOWAS generally politically and economically, and because of the many joint initiatives underway, GWP / WA met with the Director of WRCC, Ibrahim Babatunde WILSON. The GWP delegation led by its Chair, Prof. Afouda, included the Executive Secretary and the Mekrou and IDMP projects officers.
The two organizations raised a number of initiatives underway at GWP / WA of which WRCC is an integral part, including the Mekrou project, IDMP, or those in which the WRCC should take the lead like the initiative on the regional dialogue on the joint management of shared aquifers in West Africa.
The Chair of GWP WAf, Pr. Abel AFOUDA had a working visit at the Secretariat from October 19 to 24, 2015. During his stay on Ouagadougou, the Chair met with the staff to have an update on the implementation of various activities and give his orientations for finalizing pending issues.
He was presented the templates for the monitoring and drafting of the work plans, the draft progress reports of the CORE and the three projects bein implemented (WACDEP, IDMP and Mekrou), the guidelines for elaborating the budgets lines for 2016. On all these Prof. AFOUDA gave some orientations. The decision was also taken to convene the virtual meeting of the Steering Committee to appreciate the various documents and give orientations to the Secretariat. This meeting will be done early in November 2015.
The CWP Ivory Coast took part in the regional training and management experiences sharing workshop between the actors of the Lake Chad Basin and the Mano River Union organized from October 5 to 7, 2015 at the Hotel New Pergola at Abidjan, Republic of Côte d'Ivoire.
The ECOWAS Water Resources Coordination Center and IUCN have organized on 1 and 2 October 2015 in Abidjan a national workshop on the dissemination and appropriation of the guidelines for the development of water infrastructure in West Africa. The workshop brought together twenty participants from the National Assembly, technical ministries and civil society, having a direct interest in the application of the guidelines. CWP Ivory Coast (PNECI) was represented by its Chair, Mr. Koffi N'DRI and KOUADIO Francis, the Executive Secretary.
A meeting was held on October 27, 2015 in the conference room of GWP West Africa to discuss issues related to the establishment of the regional platform for stakeholders on drought management in the region. During this second meeting a presentation was made on various tools that could be used to ease communication between members of the platform before and when it is set up. Among these tools were social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), Google communication tools, Yammer, etc.
The Mali CWP organized on 29 October 2015 a meeting of drought management stakeholders at national to set up the platform in the frame work of the Integerated Drought Management Project (IDMP).
The meeting brought together about twenty people from the CWP Mali, local NGOs, meteorological services, civil society and government departments in charge of the issues of water resources, agriculture and climate change.
The implementation committee of the youth project in Togo organized a press conference on Tuesday, October 27 to introduce the National White Paper. The event took place in the presence of representatives of the government, development partners, youth organizations and the media. It was an opportunity to initiate other actions, particularly with the Delegation of the European Union in Togo to support the dissemination of the white paper after the COY11.
The Ghana Country Water Partnership (CWP-Ghana) hosted the 7th Technical Coordination workshop of the Water, Climate and Development Program (WACDEP) from Monday 5th October to Wednesday 7th October, 2015 at the La-Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra. The purpose of the meeting was to share progress, approaches and lessons learnt in delivering the WACDEP outputs in the 8 countries rolling out the program. It also served as a platform to discuss the key constraints and opportunities identified during implementation, and set the stage for scaling up WACDEP implementation.
The young parliamentarians acting through the National Youth Parliament for Water and Sanitation (PNJEA) of Benin, have organized on Thursday, October 29, 2015, in Cotonou an official ceremony to present the White Booklet to the Beninese authorities. The PNJEA also seized the opportunity to distinguish its godfathers and godmothers including the Minister of Water.