The Global Water Partnership (GWP) is an international network created to foster an integrated approach to water resources management (

IWRM Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful for humans, for example as a source of drinking water supply or irrigation water. 97% of the water on the Earth is salt water and only three percent is fresh water; slight ...

) and provide practical advice for sustainably managing

water resources Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful for humans, for example as a source of drinking water supply or irrigation water. 97% of the water on the Earth is salt water and only three percent is fresh water; slight ...

.Falkenmark, Malin and Folke, Carl (September 2000) "How to Bring Ecological Services into Integrated Water Resources Management" ''Ambio'' 29(6): pp. 351–352. The article synopsizes the November 1999 seminar held at the Beijer Institute by the Stockholm University Centre for Research on Natural Resources and the Environment to identify fundamental gaps in the activities and planning of the Global Water Partnership. It operates as a network, open to all organisations, including government institutions, agencies of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

, bi- and multi-lateral development banks, professional associations, research institutions, non-governmental organisations, and the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

.Reinicke, Wolfgang H. (1999) "The Other World Wide Web: Global Public Policy Networks" ''Foreign Policy'' No. 117 pp. 44–57

History

GWP grew out of decades of dissatisfaction with

water management Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful for humans, for example as a source of drinking water supply or irrigation water. 97% of the water on the Earth is salt water and only three percent is fresh water; slight ...

practices and a consensus that a more sustainable approach was needed. Several large international conferences and agreements had particular influence over its formation: * The 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Environment * The 1977

Mar del Plata Mar del Plata is a city on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is the seat of General Pueyrredón district. Mar del Plata is the second largest city in Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" is a s ...

Conference, * The 1992 Dublin Conference held in preparation for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) (

Earth Summit The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio Conference or the Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to June 14, 1992. Earth Su ...

) in Rio de Janeiro the same year. One outcome of the Dublin Conference were the "Dublin Principles" that are the founding pillars of IWRM. *

Agenda 21 Agenda 21 is a non-binding action plan of the United Nations with regard to sustainable development. It is a product of the Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. It is an action age ...

that came out of the UNECD formally integrated the Dublin principles in Chapter 18: Protection of the Quality & Supply of Freshwater Resources: Application of Integrated Approaches to the Development, Management & Use of Water Resources". The GWP was founded in 1996 with the support of the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

, the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

(UNDP) and the

Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency ( sv, Styrelsen för internationellt utvecklingssamarbete, ) is a government agency of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Sida is responsible for organization of the bulk of Swede ...

(Sida).Reinicke, Wolfgang H. (1999) "The Other World Wide Web: Global Public Policy Networks" ''Foreign Policy'' No. 117 pp. 44–57 Initially functioning as a unit of Sida, GWP became an intergovernmental organisation under international law known as the Global Water Partnership Organisation (GWPO) in 2002. The secretariat is based in Stockholm, Sweden.

Organisational structure

The Network currently comprises 13 Regional Water Partnerships and 68 accredited Country Water Partnerships, and includes more than 3,000 institutional Partners located in over 170 countries. The 13 regions are: Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, Central Africa, West Africa, the Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe, Caribbean, Central America, South America, Central Asia and the Caucasus, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. Although the activities are coordinated and supported from the Secretariat, Regional and Country Partnerships manage and govern themselves, and convene stakeholders to address specific issues. The Global Secretariat supports the Executive Secretary, the Technical Committee and other GWP Committees, and the Regional Water Partnerships in governance, finance, communications, planning, and operational management of programmes and administration. In addition, GWP is supported by its Technical Committee which consists of professionals selected for their experience in different disciplines relating to water resources management. The GWP Chair is Howard Bamsey, who took up the position in January 2019. Executive Secretary and CEO is Darío Soto-Abril (effective 1 March 2021) and the Chair of the GWP Technical Committee is Dr Jerome Delli Priscoli. Its Patrons are Dr. Ismail Serageldin and

Margaret Catley-Carlson Margaret Catley-Carlson, (born 6 October 1942) is a Canadian civil servant. She was Chair and is now a Patron of the Global Water Partnership, a working partnership among all those involved in water management formed in 1996 by the World Bank, th ...

. the Prince of Orange Willem-Alexander was a Patron until 30 April 2013 when he became King of the Netherlands. In May 2014

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (born Ellen Eugenia Johnson, 29 October 1938) is a Liberian politician who served as the 24th president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. Sirleaf was the first elected female head of state in Africa. Sirleaf was born in Monro ...

, President of the Republic of Liberia, became a Patron of GWP.

Operations and Actions

GWP most important tasks are

Capacity Building Capacity building (or capacity development, capacity strengthening) is the improvement in an individual's or organization's facility (or capability) "to produce, perform or deploy". The terms ''capacity building'' and ''capacity development'' ha ...

and

Knowledge Sharing Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge (namely, information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, peers, families, communities (for example, Wikipedia), or within or between organizations. It bridges the ind ...

. This is done through publications, workshops, training courses, meetings, informal exchanges, and through its IWRM Toolbox website."About Global Water Partnership"
Global Water Partnership Toolbox The GWP IWRM Toolbox is a free

platform Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system or ...

and

online database An online database is a database accessible from a local network or the Internet, as opposed to one that is stored locally on an individual computer or its attached storage (such as a CD). Online databases are hosted on websites, made available as s ...

with local, national, regional, and global case studies and references. It allows practitioners and professionals to discuss and analyse the various elements of the IWRM process, and facilitates the prioritization of actions aimed at improving

water governance Environmental governance (EG) consist of a system of laws, norms, rules, policies and practices that dictate how the board members of an environment related regulatory body should manage and oversee the affairs of any environment related regu ...

and management, as well as engage with a broader community for the solution of water related problems. GWP also operates with strategic allies through thematic programmes such as the Global Water and Climate Programme, the joint GWP-World Meteorological Organization Associated Programme on

Flood Management Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water level ...

and the Integrated

Drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

Management Programme. Key strategic allies include among others: CapNet UNDP, UN-Water and

UNEP The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...

-DHI Centre.

References

{{Authority control United Nations organizations based in Europe International sustainability organizations Water and the environment International water associations World Bank United Nations Development Programme Water security Water organizations Sweden and the United Nations