In this issue:

• Capacitating women water professionals
• Collaboration with UNEP on Water and the Environment
• Opportunities for collaboration in Central Asia
• Focus on a network member
• Cap-Net Lanka trains communities to blog issues on sand mining
• LA-WETnet held its 4th network members meeting in Peru
• Course on Water Safety Plans for Water Utilities

Capacitating women water professionals

A draft gender mainstreaming strategy is under development for the network. It reviews Cap-Net efforts towards gender mainstreaming in water management capacity building and network development and suggests actions that could be pursued in the future to ensure that our activities positively influence gender equity. Currently there is over 62% male participation in Cap-Net water management courses. The Cap-Net gender strategy will address this and other gender discrepancies.There will be an emphasis on developing the skills and knowledge of women professionals in the water sector. For future courses it will be especially important to increase participation of women in themes that have have been traditionally  male dominated such as groundwater management, river basin management, and flood management.   It is interesting to note that SaciWaters presented a report of the status of women professionals in the water sector in South Asia at the World Water Week this year. Similar regional studies could provide a global benchmark for the activities to be detailed in the strategy. To further foster our collaboration with the actors in this field, Cap-Net participated in the Gender and Water Alliance (GWA) Regional Strategic Action Planning Meeting for Southern Africa in Lusaka from 16-18 September. At the meeting GWA emphasised the essence of why gender is important in water management – that there is no gender neutral development. At the meeting, various activities were proposed on capacity building, knowledge management and advocacy. We invite interested partners to contribute to the identification of other activities for mainstreaming gender in water management. For more details contact: or Nicholas Tandi (nick.tandi@cap-net.org) or Esther de Jong (estherdejong@gwalliance.org)  

Collaboration with UNEP on Water and the Environment

Collaboration has been initiated with UNEP to develop a capacity building programme on IWRM and the Environment. This theme has not been fully addressed in capacity building activities. From the ongoing discussions it is likely to focus on ecosystem services. These services provide a variety of benefits for human health and wellbeing- including “goods” such as food, water, fibre and pharmaceutical products, and “services” such as the regulation of soil fertility, floods ,droughts and disease. The quality and use of these ecosystem services are negatively affected by habitat change, pollution (mostly by nitrogen and phosphorus) invasive alien species, overexploitation and climate change. The resulting ecosystem changes, primarily driven by population growth and increasing economic development, will be difficult, expensive, or impossible to reverse. Pollution and land use planning management are some of the topics that will be addressed. The programme will lead to the development of new training material and courses. Networks that have ideas and planned activities in line with this new programme are invited to contribute to its development. A meeting will be held with partners and some Cap-Net affiliated networks to develop and plan for the initial activities. The meeting will be hosted by UNEP early 2010, in Nairobi, Kenya. For more details contact Kees Leendertse (kees.leendertse@cap-net.org)

Opportunities for collaboration in Central Asia

The start of a regional UNDP programme in Central Asia, “Promoting IWRM and Fostering Transboundary Dialogue” on implementing IWRM in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, offers significant opportunities for joint capacity building activities and networking. The project aims to promote transboundary dialogue and sustainable water resources management through interventions at national and transboundary levels. Cap-Net met with the project coordinator, Natalia Alexeeva, and discussed capacity building options. The project will identify partners in the region for the implementation of such activities and in this manner stimulate networking in the region between different capacity building institutions. Activities foreseen include capacity building for water professionals and managers in IWRM and Climate Change Adaptation; River Basin Organisations; Conflict Resolution and IWRM planning. Local implementing partners identified will be invited to a capacity building planning meeting, tentatively scheduled for early next year. For more information please contact Natalia Alexeeva (natalia.alexeeva@undp.org) or Kees Leendertse (kees.leendertse@cap-net.org)                               

Focus on a network member 

Michelle Mycoo (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surveying and Land Information at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine in Trinidad. Her department hosts Caribbean WaterNet. She is a co-author of the Training Manual "Economic and Financial Instruments for IWRM" and has several publications on water management in international journals. Michelle’s mission is to expose her students to the merits of IWRM and to continue training of trainers in IWRM.

What is your role in Caribbean Waternet? I am a Trainer of Trainers in Economic and Financial Instruments in IWRM. I have conducted several training workshops among them in St. Lucia, Trinidad and St. Kitts.

What benefits do you get from being a network member? I have had the opportunity to discuss with policymakers and practitioners, the issues related to IWRM. It also provides me with an opportunity to understand the challenges faced by water managers in their own countries which helps develop my research agenda. I benefited tremendously in co-authoring the training manual on Economic and Financial Instruments.

What could be done better? The links with other networks (so as to know what they are doing) would be useful. I certainly benefited from the workshops held in Mexico and South Africa in interacting with the authors of the training manual on Economic and Financial Instruments as wells as the participants. I would like to know if participants are using the training material.

Michelle can be reached on this address: mmycoo@hotmail.com

Cap-Net Lanka trains communities to blog issues on sand mining

Cap-Net Lanka and its partners in Sri Lanka (including NetWater, Sri Lanka Water Partnership private sector organisations and well wishers) have been engaged in activism against illicit and destructive river sand mining since 2005. This response was driven by the threat that mining posed to rivers, ecosystems, human health and as well as the damage to local infrastructure such as bridges, irrigation, water supply systems and roads. The dialogue has included multiple stakeholders including the University of Ruhuna, the media, the Police, and sand miners. The dialogue provided a forum for multiple stakeholder engagement accompanied with capacity building on the policy and impacts of sand and clay mining.

As part of the dialogue, 19 young environmentalists from areas affected by sand and clay mining, were recently, trained in blogging. They are using blogging as an advocacy tool to increase the awareness of the general public on the extent and impact of unregulated sand mining. Participants of the training worked in four groups and are developing their blogs listed below.

• Hamilton canal: http://meenukaayantha.blogspot.com. (Charles_vijan@yahoo.com)
• Deduru Oya: www.deduroya.blogspot.com (prasadiusg@yahoo.com)
• Ma oya: www.maoyariver.blogspot.com (Achinifernando58@yahoo.com)
• Climate change: www.handsomeheshan.blogspot.com (islawp@gmail.com)

For more about the sand mining dialogue contact Dr Mowjood (mmowjood@pdn.ac.lk)

LA-WETnet held its 4th network members meeting in Peru

Following network meetings held in Lima (2002), Brasilia (2004), and Buenos Aires (2007), the fourth LA-WETnet members meeting took place in Lima, Peru, September 9-10. Sessions were held in a very warm and participatory atmosphere and were mostly delivered by different members.

It is evident that a solid team of members are taking the network forward by taking responsibility for network deliverables. Strategic areas with special emphasis in the coming years were identified: communication; IWRM capacity building (with special efforts in WATSAN, climate change, gender, and water integrity); reaching decision and policy makers for strengthening IWRM plans and actions, and having a project portfolio to approach donors.

By the end of the meeting all steering committee (SC) members showed interest to continue with support of the other meeting participants. And as from now a new member has joined the committee, Pablo Lloret representing Ecuador. The practice in LA-WETnet is to aim for regional representation in the SC. A new web site will be launched in the coming weeks where more information about the network will be posted. For mor nformation pon LA-WETnet get in touch with Damian Indij (damian.indij@fibertel.com.ar) 

Course on Water Safety Plans for water utilities

A course on Water Safety Plans (WSP) for water utilities was held successfully at the Rand Water facilities in Vereeniging, South Africa, from 21 to 25 September. There were 29 participants representing 9 utilities from 7 African countries and included in the participants were two regulators (Ghana and Zambia).

Facilitation of the course was shared between Rand Water and Cap-Net. Presentations of the modules were made by the Ghana National Water and Sewage Company, International Water Association (IWA) Africa, Jose Vieira of the University of Braga, Portugal, Rand Water and Cap-Net. Apart from formal openings etc additional presentations were made by Rand Water on the South African experience with WSP. The two regulators made a presentation of what WSP means for them and UN-HABITAT made a presentation on Water Operators Partnerships (WOPS) and the way forward after the course.

During the course the participants made good progress in developing their own WSP. Clearly there is a lot of work still to do but they got to the stage where they felt that they had started something they were intending to finish. One participant commented:

“The training was an eye opener to us and we trust that its effects will have a marked impact on service delivery to our customers for generations to come. Our first presentation to CMT on Water Safety Plan is scheduled for 30th Sep 09 and we are very optimistic that it will receive backing from management.”

A follow up plan was discussed and will include: an email discussion forum; visits between utilities to apply the assessment tool to assess progress; a seminar at the African Water Congress in March to report on this training with some case study reports and to discuss other capacity building; and, partnering on exchange of skills.

Participants agreed to provide a more detailed draft WSP by the end of the year and in some cases were committed to taking the WSP to a national scale.

The materials and approach of the course were much appreciated. The course will be held in Portuguese and French, possibly in Angola and Morocco, in the first semester of next year.

For more information contact Paul Taylor: paul.taylor@cap-net.org

 Cap-Net is supported by:

Mail: info@cap-net.org

Web: www.cap-net.org

Tel: +27 12 3309077

Fax: +27 12 3314860

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