On April 17, 2013 in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, a workshop was held to discuss the report on Green Growth in the Aral Sea, prepared by the Global Water Partnership (GWP) of Central Asia and the Caucasus, the Scientific Information Center of the Interstate Coordination Water Commission (SIC ICWC) of Central Asia with the support from the Global Green Growth Institute (Korea). The workshop was attended by officials from national water agencies and executive bodies of ICWC.
In Central America there are 23 transboundary basins which represent approximately 36.9% of the territory. But in most there are no joint agreements for their management. That is why GWP Nicaragua and the Latin American Water Tribunal (TLA) coordinated the regional forum, "Water in Central America: Opportunities for conflict resolution."
The Lempa River is shared by Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, making its management a good example of transboundary cooperation. To reach consensus, action was taken to develop a treaty as part of a regional process. However, since the treaty was not accompanied by strategies designed by local actors, it is somewhat weak. Nonetheless, this case illustrates that political willingness is crucial for advancing towards IWRM in transboundary watersheds.
This year's World Water Week takes place in Stockholm 1-6 September 2013.
“Building resilience of people, communities and countries to these water-related disasters and extreme climate events is the major challenge of our time, as climate change will get worse before it gets better,” were the closing words of the speech given by the GWP Chair Dr Ursula Schaefer-Preuss at the first meeting of the High-level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP) on 4 June 2013 in Tokyo, Japan.
A project focusing on safe water and sanitation in the Republic of Moldova won Category 2 of the Award.