With global change projections pointing to increasing water scarcity and drought in the Mediterranean, which are bound to cause significant environmental and socio-economic impacts, the development of a new management approach for water basins by integrating scientific thinking with sociological considerations seems essential.
The 1st Regional Conference of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) labelled project “Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector” will be held on 28-30 October 2014, in Athens, Greece, in close collaboration with the EU funded “Sustainable Water Integrated Management - Support Mechanism” (SWIM-SM) project.
La Poza micro-basin is experiencing severe environmental degradation, mainly due to unsustainable deforestation practices executed to expand agricultural land. To combat the issues, action was taken to implement IWRM. Throughout the implementation, there has been a high level of community participation facilitated by extensive capacity building and training in environmental management. The primary lesson drawn from this example is the crucial importance of community participation for a successful implementation.
The Upper Veda Project involves a dam that would submerge 14 villages. Opposing the project, the affected communities took action and urged for alternative solutions. The dam was eventually constructed, but the process was characterised by conflicts between the project authorities and the communities. This case illustrates that dam projects, which directly affect the livelihoods of large numbers of people, need to have developed a well defined rehabilitation plan prior to construction.
Two weeks later the Roundtable "National Consultations on water in the post-2015 development agenda" organized by CWP-Georgia, some participants were interviewed by the journalist of the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda v Gruzii" (The Truth of Young Communist League in Georgia).
The Global Water Partnership–Caribbean (GWP-C) Water Climate and Development Programme (WACDEP) is aimed at building climate resilience in the water sector as a key part of sustainable regional and national development for economic growth and human security.
In March 2012, the 23rd Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), adopted the Implementation Plan for a Regional Framework for Achieving Development Resilient to Climate Change. The Implementation Plan was developed by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), a lead CARICOM agency for coordination of climate change interventions in the region.