In this issue:
- Putting the environment at the centre of water management
- Strategic Financial Planning for Water Supply and Sanitation
- Planning for water management by River Basin Organisations
- News from MyCBNet Annual General Meeting
- WaterNet Course on Water Resources Assessment, South Africa
- Upcoming activities
Putting the environment at the centre of water management
In the history of water management, the environment has barely been considered when management choices had to be made –with negative consequences for both the quality and quantity of available water. The Ecosystem Management perspective, has for long argued that managing water is about managing ecosystems. In essence Ecosystems Management is about managing ecosystems for resilience to maintain their long term ability to provide a range of ecosystem services. Noting that the range of these services includes the provision and purification of water as well as flood and climate regulation, the central role of ecosystems in water management becomes clear.
In an effort to develop collaboration for capacity building in mainstreaming the environment in water management, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Cap-Net convened a planning workshop with representation from 13 organisations at UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi from 10-12 March. The meeting achieved its objective, with the major output being the development of a collaborative programme with partnership contributions and work plans for: (i) developing a training package, (ii) training courses delivery to educators, water managers, environmental managers, water users and other stakeholders and (iii) improving the knowledge base through compilation of case studies.
The approach to be taken in the capacity building programme will be to make water managers more aware of the services that water ecosystems provide, and then working backwards to show the ecological processes that result in the provision of these services, how they are affected by current water management practices, and what can be done about it. Discussions on the following questions will be critical:
- What are the interactions between the environment and other water use sectors?
- What is the value of ecosystems and environmental services within a river basin?
- What are the practical tools water managers can use to incorporate the environment in water management?
- Are the boundaries for ecosystems management compatible with those for river basin management?
If you are a water manager who has been struggling with these questions or have the answers, then the programme is meant for you. For more information contact Kees Leendertse at kees.leendertse@cap-net.org
Strategic Financial Planning for Water Supply and Sanitation
Achieving the MDGs on Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) is going to require, a lift in finance to develop, modernize, maintain and operate WSS systems. The Finance Working Group of the European Union Water Initiative and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have been implementing a project whose main objective is to define what may be considered to be best practice for financial planning for the WSS sector in an African context. In a parallel process, Cap-Net and its affiliated capacity building networks and partners have been implementing two programmes which are relevant to the same theme:
- training on economic and financial instruments for water management (over 20 trainings conducted so far); and
- case studies and training on water supply and sanitation in Africa and Latin America, with a focus on the Sector Wide Approach to planning and the link between WSS and IWRM.
These separate initiatives have now combined their efforts to develop a training programme to capacitate water supply, sanitation and hygiene institutions in strategic financial planning as a means to improve service delivery. At a meeting held in Pretoria from 8-10 March, the partners met and defined the content of training materials and an approach to training and advocacy. Piloting of the training materials will begin in March in either of the following countries: - Malawi, Zambia or Uganda. If you would like to know more about this programme contact Paul Taylor at paul.taylor@cap-net.org
Planning for water management by River Basin Organisations
Many countries are introducing River Basin Organisations (RBOs) as the ideal governing institution for de-centralised water resources management. Cap-Net has been supporting RBOs to define their key water management functions and develop capacity to execute them. Over the years however, there has been a realisation that monitoring the advancement of water management is a challenging task. Water managers and capacity development organisations have grappled with the following questions:
- How do our water management activities show that we are now implementing IWRM?
- How do we know if we are getting better at discharging our water management functions from year to year?
- What has been the impact of our capacity development on water management?
While some attempts have been made to assess performance of river basin organisations, most cases have focused on the operations of the organisations with little focus on water management activities. This in part is because RBOs (where they have been established as functional separate organisations), initially focus on establishing the institution as a credible water management organisation before they can discharge their regulatory roles. Cap-Net and some partners will be providing capacity development support for RBOs to develop strategic plans for water managements. The plans will allow them to monitor their performance in discharging their key water management functions. Water managers will define indicators that allow them to monitor their progress in implementing IWRM at the river basin scale, thus facilitating a process of self assessment which can ultimately lead to: (i) a prioritisation of water management actions that is evidence based and (ii) the identification of capacity building needs. Following this, we envisage the development of partnerships between basin organisations for the purpose of peer to peer capacity building.For more information on this new initiative contact Nick Tandi: nick.tandi@cap-net.org
News from MyCBNet Annual General Meeting
The first AGM of the Malaysian Water Partnership Capacity Building Network (MyCBNet) was held on 4 February 2010 and was hosted by the National Hydraulic Research Institute of Malaysia. A great part of the meeting was focused on the 2010 programme of work. The network plans to align itself to the major developments in their water sector which are:
- the intitation of 9 IWRM Best Management Practices projects by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage;
- the commissioning of a study entitled, “Review of the National Water Resources Study (2000-2050) and Formulation of National Water Resources Policy” by the Hydrology and Water Resources Division; and
- the creation of water-related task forces by the Academy of Science Malaysia -Water Committee. The taskforces will provide strategic advice to the National Water Resources Council on a number of key water-related issues in Malaysia. One of the task forces created is on Science and Technology Awareness, Advocacy and Capacity Building.
MyCBNet sees these developments as opportunities to learn and take practical water management lessons to scale or partner in the delivery of capacity building. We look forward to the implementation of the network’s work plan this year which will address Integrated Flood Management, Climate Change and Capacitating River Basin Organisations. Information on MyCBNet can be found at the Malaysia Water Partnership Website
WaterNet Course on Water Resources Assessment, South Africa
Rennie Chioreso, WaterNet Programe Officer, planned and attended this course from 15-19 March in Cape Town. Here are her impressions of how it went.
What issue did this course address? Water resources assessment (and ultimately management) depends on good quality hydrological and hydrometeorological data-which is often not available. Participants acquired new knowledge on new sources of data, how to manage data, and how to manipulate it and make information products ultimately leading to better decision making by water managers.
What was the most pleasing aspect? There was a lot of positive energy around! The participants were very enthusiastic and committed-often working long hours into the night. They also worked in country or institution teams to prioritise their problems and went on to make some first attempts to develop solutions using the skills and knowledge acquired. That was the best session.
What challenges did you face in delivering the course? It is a very intensive and practical course and there was not enough time for participants to practice the new skills they had acquired.
How did you try to ensure a gender balance? We specifically encouraged women to apply and asked the organisers and nominating institutions to do the same. It was an active effort and we got more than one third female participation from well qualified professionals.
What are the plans for the future? The course had more than 100 qualified applicants and we had some participants with private funding, a good indicator of demand. We will soon publish the training materials online in English, French and Portuguese-the official languages of the Southern Africa Development Community. We will also be conducting a post course evaluation after 6 months. From the evaluation, there may emerge some good stories on good practice in data management resulting in part from the training.
The course was hosted by the University of the Western Cape in partnership with UNESCO-IHE and the University of Botswana and supported by Cap-Net.
Some upcoming activities
Course on Transparency and integrity in the water sector: Tools and instruments for improved governance from 26-30 April, Costa Rica by LA-WETnet and CATIE. Read more>>
Course on groundwater Management in an IWRM framework, from 12-16 April in Lome, Togo by Partenariat National de l’Eau –Togo and Africann Groundwater Network. Read more>>