6th CP 2006, Gaborone, Botswana, Mainstreaming IWRM into National Developmental Processes

The major focus of the 6th GWP-SA Annual Consulting Partners Meeting held on 12 and 13 July 2006 in Gaborone, Botswana was on integrating IWRM into regional and national developmental process. For the first time since its inception in 2000, the GWP-SA CP theme was in line with the WARFSA/WaterNet/GWPSA symposium; to encourage stronger cooperation and coordination between the three regional IWRM programmes. This move took cognisance of the September 2005 recommendation of Heads of State at the Millennium +5 Summit that IWRM plans should be integrated into national developmental processes. In view of this, the theme of the 6th GWP-SA CP Meeting was:

“Mainstreaming IWRM into regional and national developmental processes"

This year’s CP meeting had the dual purpose of serving as an AGM where GWP Partners discussed Partnership business, as well as a forum in which to address the importance of IWRM in the region. Thus this year's meeting focused on Partnership Business, Regional Integration, and Integration of IWRM into developmental processes. Three parallel working group sessions discussed technical issues on integrating IWRM into developmental processes and plans, understanding the water efficiency components in the plans and the issue of sharing benefits in a transboundary context and what this means for us in SADC. A fourth parallel session focused on GWP-SA Partnership issues while a fifth CP session focused on Mainstreaming HIV and AIDS into the IWRM process. During this session, discussions were on recommendations that emerged from a Harare SIDA workshop in an effort to see how these recommendations could be integrated into IWRM.

IWRM plays a key role in the achievement of the MDGs and economic growth. By facilitating the development of National IWRM Plans that will ultimately help reduce poverty at country level, GWP-SA continues to make significant contributions towards realising the MDGs and fostering regional development. Regionally GWP-SA has been supporting SADC in the development of the Regional Water Policy and the Regional Water Strategy which maps out the water sector’s contribution to regional development.

IWRM Regional Processes
The SADC Water Division developed the Regional Water Policy, which has since been adopted (in full) by the ICM from the Regional Strategic Action Plan I (RSAP I). It provides the context and intent for water resources management at SADC regional level. The Regional Water Strategy was developed through intensive regional stakeholder consultations and GWP-SA was instrumental in both processes - facilitating technical input and review, as well as bringing together regional stakeholders to contribute to the policy and strategy development. The regional water partnership was also instrumental in the development of the Regional Framework for Action, which was an important input into the regional water policy.

IWRM National Processes
A number of countries have undergone water sector reforms in order to make their policies and acts IWRM friendly. A lot has also been done in implementing these policies in the region. A number of countries are currently developing their IWRM Plans – in response to the WSSD call for the development of IWRM Plans that contribute to sustainable development.

Clearly an enabling environment has been set for both regional and national IWRM processes. GWP-SA believes that it is critically important that different stakeholders’ priority actions are integrated into IWRM policies and strategies and that they add value to national development programmes and regional processes. How this is achieved is a major challenge, one which GWP-SA’s CP was dedicated to tackling. The 6th GWP-SA CP was invaluable in providing a platform for the partnership to meet and strategise on how best to approach the integration of IWRM into developmental processes. The CP was also very concerned with finding ways in which the integration can realistically be achieved, with establishing what the partnership offers and how best GWP-SA can fulfil its ‘facilitating integration’ role.

Objectives of the meeting
Towards this end, and based on the focus of the meeting, the meeting’s overall objectives were:
ß To develop strategies on integrating IWRM into regional and national development processes
ß To raise understanding of water efficiency in the IWRM planning process
ß To raise awareness on the concept of sharing of benefits as a contribution to regional integration
based on the SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses
ß To share and discuss mainstreaming of HIV and AIDS in IWRM processes and The Partnership
ß To develop ways in which the partnership and regional partners can be strengthened and how they
can contribute to the implementation of the RSAP II.

Enquiries
For further information on the CP meeting please contact the GWP-SA Secretariat at:
Tel: +27 12 8459100
Fax: +27 12 8459110
Email: r.mafemba@cgiar.org (for logistical matters)
a.simalabwi@cgiar.org and a.takawira@cgiar.org (for programmatic matters)

For more information on GWP-SA’s 6th Annual Consulting Partner’s Meeting please click here to access the complete CP Information Note.