Workshop on water security in East Africa advances NAPs
Submitted by esther.lake@undp.org on 23 September 2013
23 September 2013: The Global Water Partnership – Eastern Africa (GWP-EAf) hosted the 5th Water, Climate and Development Programme for Africa (WACDEP) Technical Coordination Workshop in Kigali, Rwanda, from 23-28 September 2013. The WACDEP was initiated to integrate the issues of water security and climate change adaptation into development planning processes.
Water security is a key issue for National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) to address in East African countries. National Adaptation Plan Global Support Programme (NAP-GSP) partner the Global Water Partnership (GWP), in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy Analysis in Africa (CEEPA- University of Pretoria) and other partners, is providing support a number of African countries to integrate the economics of adaptation in the context of water security and climate resilient development.
NAP-GSP technical experts are leading an effort on building and strengthening capacities of technical officers in Ministries of Finance and Planning, as well as key line Ministries on the economics of adaptation. These skills are integral to the NAP process and recognized in the NAP guidelines developed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Over 70 delegates attended the workshop, which was officially opened by Ms. Caroline Kayonga, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Rwanda. WACDEP Country Managers from Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Ghana, Mozambique, Cameroon and Rwanda gave presentations on the progress and outputs towards integrating water security and climate resilience into National Development Plans and developing investments plans.
A follow up training is scheduled to be conducted in Addis Ababa in November 2013.