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Vol. 3
No.
6
December 2001
African Water Forum
The African Water Forum (AWF) has been established to facilitate information exchange
on water management among African countries. It is the outcome of the two-day meeting
organised by government of Kenya in Nairobi on October 11-12, 2001, which was attended by
ministers of water resources from 20 African countries, along with some 50 water experts
and representatives from international organisations.
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A group of
African Water Forum delegates Newsflow |
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A new newsletter
The Orissa Watershed Mission has published a
newsletter, Bhoomi Panchayat, to share the experiences in watershed development. The
newsletter is published in English and Oriya so that the farmers can be kept updated about
the programme.
Since June 2000, a 10 year plan to treat 25 lakh
hectares of land has been implemented with a budget of Rs 155 crores. The newsletter
explains about the concept of watershed management. A chart describes about the
institutional structure that is in place, and about the achievements of the mission. Among
the prominent highlights was the jal sanchyan abhiyan sapatha that spread the message of
water harvesting in all the districts. The newsletter however lacks the touch of community
participation. It describes more of achievements for the government than actually
describing cases that can act as models. The newsletter can help in bring out perspectives
of communities by making the newsletter an interface between the authority and the
community.
For further information:
Director, Watershed Mission
Agriculture Department
Government of Orissa, Bhubanewar
Email: watershd@ori.nic.in |
The Global Water Partnership’s (GWP)
initiative is the inspiration behind setting up this forum. On water resources management,
the AWF functions complements the role of the GWP’s regional and country partnership
by creating a continent-wide network among these and similar groups like the Nile Basin
Initiative.
During the two-day meet the participants agreed
that while the forum will focus on enhancing water management at the individual country
level, the GWP partnerships will continue to focus on institutional networking for
promoting adoption and implementation of integrated water resources management at the
policy making level. The participants discussed the policy-related constraints and
challenges that they are facing while managing their fresh water resources. They agreed to
work towards a solution by establishing an inter-governmental mechanism for policy
dialogue at the ministerial level, while their partners like GWP would provide them the
necessary support to facilitate these dialogues.
Source:
Global Water Partnership
newsletter (2001), ‘Newsflow’, 2.
www.gwpforum.org
Public Hearing
From the three districts of Jaipur, Tonk and Pali, villagers will gather
on the 25th and 26th of February in village Nagri. A public hearing on natural resource
development; people’s initiative versus government response is the theme of the
hearing organised by Gram Vikas Navyuvak Mandal Laporiya (GVNML). There will be a dialogue
too on the strategies and action plan for resource management.
The village samitis have been working on a community -based
natural resource management strategy for quiet sometime and in September 2000, they held a
similar gathering. A draft was presented to the concerned government departments. The
gathering was attended by sarpanchs from five districts of Rajasthan. The issues
discussed on which the draft is near ready are on pastureland management, common land
disputes, and nagrik adhikar patra (right to information bill). A memorandum
prepared and presented to the CM, Ashok Gehlot demanded the right of panchayat over
common village resources, revival of water harvesting systems, agriculture development
through chouka bandi and right to the panchayat for implementing education
programmes. All these issues will be debated in this workshop for two days and a draft to
be finalised will be prepared.
For further information:
Gram Vikas Navyuvak Mandal Laporiya
Village Laporiya, Dudu Block, District Jaipur
Tel: 01428-24486 |
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