CURRENTS - newsletter from the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP)

Issue n°34, June 2007

News

Olcay Ünver © Ünver

UNESCO Names Olcay Ünver the New Coordinator of WWAP

On May 22^nd 2007, Olcay Ünver became the new coordinator of UNESCO’s World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP). Mr. Ünver brings to WWAP a tremendous amount of global experience and it is with great pleasure that we welcome him here and look forward to working with him.

Mr. Ünver, a native of Turkey, is coming directly from Kent State University, USA where he was a distinguished professor of water resources since 2004. During his time at Kent State, he was one of the founding members of the Euphrates-Tigris Initiative for Cooperation (ETIC), a program that aims “to mobilize collective expertise, catalyze processes and develop appropriate partnerships to encourage regional cooperation and development to improve the quality of life for the people of the Euphrates-Tigris Region.” This initiative came after working for 13 years as the president of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) Regional Development Administration. The GAP project is one of the largest of its kind in the world and aims to develop water resources, through an integrated, multi-sectoral approach, over 75,000 km².

Mr. Ünver also has participated in various prestigious international organizations such as working on the Board of Governors of the World Water Council (1995-2003), acting as Vice-President for Europe and the Middle Eastern Region of the International Water Resources Association (2004-2006) and council member of the International Hydropower Association (1997-2000). He holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, USA and holds Master's and Bachelor's degrees, also in Civil Engineering, from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.

UNESCO is very excited to have Mr. Ünver working with us and we wish him all the best in the years ahead.

World Water Development Reports designated to report on IWRM implementation milestones

The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, approved by the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002, included a target for all countries “to develop integrated water resources management and water efficiency plans by 2005, with support to developing countries”. By 2006, 25% of countries had completed their plans; in a further 50% the process was well underway while, for a variety of reasons, including a lack of both human and financial capacity and uncertainty about the approach and its objectives, 25% had not yet begun.

Within this framework, the Government of Denmark and UN-Water convened the international conference “Managing Water Towards 2015”, in Copenhagen, Denmark on 13 April 2007 aimed to develop and recommend a general global roadmap for the implementation of the IWRM target with the view of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) sustainably, including appropriate milestones through 2015, identify and discuss the specific linkages of the IWRM roadmap to service delivery in view of meeting the MDGs, and discuss and recommend next steps to be taken by the international community, regions, countries, and by bilateral and international supporting institutions.

Representatives of developing countries met to discuss the feasibility of existing IWRM targets and possible milestones. In a later stage, representatives of donor countries and organizations joined the discussion. They put together a “Roadmap for the Implementation of IWRM through 2015 and beyond”, with milestones to be reported in future UN World Water Development Reports (2009, 2012 and 2015).

Specifically, it is proposed that:

- in 2008, all countries will report to the Commission on Sustainable Development 16 on their progress in establishing their plans to implement IWRM and the MDG-related water resource management priorities that they have identified
- in 2009, a review assessing the extent to which key enabling conditions for the implementation of these priorities have been addressed
- in 2012, the progress of specific IWRM reform processes will be reviewed
- in 2015, the extent to which IWRM initiatives have successfully contributed to the implementation of the MDGs will be assessed.

Read more

Events

5^th International Workshop on Regional Focuses for the Development and Management of Dams in the La Plata River Basin

March 2008: Foz de Iguazú, Brazil

Iguazu Falls © UNESCO, J.C. Simon

WWAP Case Studies

WWAP Launches La Plata Basin Case Study Report

The La Plata River Basin, the fifth largest river basin in the world, covers over 3,100,000 km2 and spans Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. With over 100 million inhabitants and 70% of the five nations’ GDP originating in the basin, the La Plata River is of great importance to the region.

WWAP recently released the La Plata Basin Case Study Report after three years of work with the riparian nations. This case study report will be used as a reference document within the basin itself for future work. The 3^rd World Water Development Report, to be published in March of 2009, will follow up on this case study and will focus on the La Plata River’s sub-basins.

Read the complete case study

WWAP Initiates National Stakeholder Meeting in Bangladesh

WWAP and the Water Resources Planning Organisation (WaRPO) launched the country case study for Bangladesh at a seminar on 21 June in Dhaka inaugurated by Mr. Malama Meleisea, Director and Representative, UNESCO Bangladesh. The seminar was attended by more than 60 persons from a broad range of stakeholders of the water sector in Bangladesh. The concept of country case studies under WWAP was presented and the timeline for conducting the case study in Bangladesh was outlined. Participants were urged to take an active role in the preparation and consultation of the case study to take place over the next year.

During the afternoon session a training workshop on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and national IWRM planning was held for interested participants. Fifteen individuals from various water-related government institutions attended the training which focused on building IWRM capacity and preparing participants to take part in IWRM planning processes.

China and Pakistan discuss possible case study with WWAP

Mr. Engin Koncagül, WWAP Case Studies Programme Officer, met with Mr. Gao Bo, Director General of the Dept of International Cooperation, Science and Technology of the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources and with Mr. Akram Kahlown, Chairman of the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources of the Ministry of Science and Technology during the 5^th World Water Forum kick-off meeting held in Istanbul, Turkey, on 19-20 March 2007. Both China and Pakistan are interested in the WWAP case study process, and they took advantage of this opportunity to explore the possibilities of developing a WWAP case study in each of these countries. The matter will be discussed further at a later stage.

Read more about the WWDR2 Case Studies

WWAP Participates

11-15 June: UNESCO-IHE 50^th Anniversary (Delft, Netherlands)

During the week of June 11^th, at the celebration of the 50^th Anniversary of the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, the new WWAP Coordinator, Olcay Ünver interacted with the more than dozen leaders of the UNESCO’s water-related Category I and II centres. These centres, located throughout the world, work within the framework of UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme (IHP) by addressing water security and water-related challenges through regional and global action. Mr. Ünver, in his conversations with the leaders of these centres, discussed the potential for their contributions to WWAP.

17-20 June: International Forum on Drought (Seville, Spain)

The Deputy Coordinator of WWAP, Mr. Carlos Fernández-Jáuregui, attended the four-day International Forum on Drought, which was held in Seville, Spain, and organized by Spain’s Ministry of the Environment. The Forum was a venue where experts from a wide variety of disciplines could come together to discuss and analyze drought in its many forms.

Mr. Fernández-Jáuregui’s participation was central he presented the keynote speech, “Learning to Live with Drought” to the over 1300 participants from 45 countries. His talk focused on common misperceptions about droughts in that they actually affect all societies, developed and developing nations alike and all sectors. He also reminded the participants that the consequences of drought are not caused by the phenomena itself, but by a lack of information, lack of social and institutional organization and the absence of adequate strategies to deal with drought. Mr. Fernández-Jáuregui concluded by stating that droughts are recurring events and will not abate, that we must improve society’s capacity to deal with droughts, that we need to be able to anticipate, prepare for and adapt to them, and change the above misperceptions so that we may learn to live with droughts in the future.

In addition to Mr. Fernández-Jáuregui’s keynote speech, he contributed to the Forum through a presentation of the 2^nd World Water Development Report to the 200 participants from 20 Latin American countries.

Conference website

21-22 June: 29^th World Water Council Board of Governors Meeting (Marseille, France)

Mr. Ünver also attended a series of meetings in conjunction with the 29^th Board of Governors meeting of the World Water Council (WWC) in Marseille, France, of which he was a former Governor. The primary focus of his participation was to discuss cooperation between the WWAP and the WWC, but during his attendance, he was also able to learn about the preparations for the 5^th World Water Forum, to take place in Istanbul, Turkey, which is where WWAP’s 3^rd World Water Development Report will be launched in March 2009.

Did you know...? Facts and figures on water in the Rhône Mediterranée Basin

• The surface area of the Rhône Mediterranée Basin is 120,000 km², covering 25% of the territory of France.
• The Rhone River is 810 km long, of which 522 km are in France.
• 15.5 billion m3 of water are stored in glaciers in the basin.
• The first development plan of the basin dates back to 1912. It aimed to develop navigation, energy production and irrigation. There are now 18 hydroelectric plants installed on the Rhône.
• Today, hydroelectric power is the second national source of electrical energy. Hydroelectric power plants made the exploitation of water resources possible, and they still fulfill different functions such as low-water level support, navigation and retention of large volumes of water for drinking water supply, leisure activities and irrigation.
• In 1999, the Rhône-Alpes region alone produced 40% of the national hydroelectric electricity. Today, 40.7 TWh are produced each year in the whole basin. That is 64% of the national hydroelectric production and 8% of the total national production of electricity.
• At first, hydroelectric developments were carried out without really taking into account the natural environment nor the role of “biological reservoirs” played by rivers. Thus, little by little, it became clear that they had led to a major degradation of rivers and had deeply modified the aquatic environment.

Facts and figures taken from the 2^nd United Nations World Water Development Report, 'Water, a shared responsibility' (WWDR2, 2006) and from the France case study [PDF format – 2.06 MB]

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