SAWA Fellow wins Best Poster Award in Stokholm
Aishwarya Nandhini Elangovan, a SAWA fellow from CWR, won the Best Poster Award at the2011 World Water Week held in Stokholm. Her poster was on "Rapid Urbanisation and Associated Sociological Impact due to flooding in an urban regime". The poster dealt with dealing with the unpredictable challenges as an effect of exploding urban growth, where an Integrated Flood assessing modelling (IFAM) framework had been developed to quantify the sociological damages and associated economic sosts. The poster attempts to suggest management measures based on performance indicators (viz. Flood depth, inundated area and resilience period) developed to reduce the impact of flooding on the urban populace.
Congratulations to Ms. Eva Manandhar
We would like to recognise the achievements of one of our SAWA fellows. Ms. Eva Manandhar (M. Sc IWRM from NEC), was awarded by the Department of Water Induced Disaster Prevention (DWIDP) of the Ministry of Irrigation, on 7th July, for her research. The Director General, Deputy Director General and other high ranking officials attended the presentation, which was titled 'Study of Effectiveness of Water-induced Disaster risk reduction Initiatives by NGOs'.
As part of her research, Ms. Manandhar, has developed a completely new matrix to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of the activities of the institutes engaged in reduction of disaster risk in Nepal. She was awarded a cash prize of NRs. 35,000 for her work
Multi-stakeholder Consulting Workshop- Bhubaneswar Chapter
Bhubaneswar: Bhubaneswar: The consultation workshop of the first phase of the India Water Development Report for the Eastern Region, was held here on 17th August at the Xavier Institute of Management. The workshop was an attempt to look at the first phase of the report, and get key inputs from water sector professionals in the states of Bihar, West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa.
Dr. Surendra Nath Tripathy, Principal Secretary, Depart of Rural Development was the keynote speaker representing the government, and Dr. Smita Mishra Panda, Human Development Foundation, Orissa, was the keynote speaker representing civil society. The workshop was attended by 33 participants from various organisations.
The fifth and final consultancy workshop will be held on 30th September at the Centre of Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
Multi-stakeholder Consulting Workshop- Guwahati Chapter
Guwahati: The third in the series of consultancy workshops of discuss issues emerging from the first phase of the India Water Development Report, was held here for the North East Region on 5th August. The states that come under this umbrella are, Assam, Sikkim, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.
The keynote speakers representing civil society and government were Prof. Chandan Mahanta, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT- Guwahati, and Mr. H. K. Borah, Secretary, Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) respectively. The workshop was attended by 42 governmental and non governmental water sector professionals, mainly Assam PHED Staff and researchers and activists working in various civil society organisations.
The workshop was raised questions about issues faced by the water and sanitation sector in the North East. It engaged in providing a platform for dialogue between governmental and non governmental officials on issues like water access and equity.
Multi-stakeholder Consulting Workshop Series- New Delhi Chapter
New Delhi: The second chapter of the Multi-stakeholder workshop series to discuss issues emerging from the first phase of the India Water Development Report, was organised here on July 20th by SaciWATERs. The New Delhi workshop is a part of a series of five regional consultation workshops that is being organised.
The workshop was instrumental in raising issues and providing insights on problems and solutions in water and sanitation, pertaining to the Northern region. It succeeded in engaging in a mutually benefiting dialogue with governmental and non governmental officials on issues like governance and gender with respect to the water sector.
Sujoy Majumdar, Director (RWS), Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, and Dr. Sarah Ahmed, Senior Program Specialist, IDRC, were the keynote speakers in the workshop that had an audience comprising activists, policy makers, researchers.
Mr. Majumdar's presentation threw light on various past, present and future schemes and projects. It also gave a bird's eye view of the various challenges plaguing the water and sanitation scenario in India, today. Dr. Sarah's presentation set the ball rolling to come up with an acceptable research agenda for water security in India. It highlight four research priorities, viz, agriculture, climate change, social equity and governance.
Multi-stakeholder Consulting Workshop- Hyderabad Chapter
The first of a series of five Multi-stakeholder Consulting workshop series was held on June 28 in Hyderabad, by SaciWATERs. The issues that emerged from the first phase of report preparation was presented to civil society and government representatives, and their feedback and suggestions were sought, for the next phase of report writing.
The workshop identified issues in the water sector in the Southern region, and put forth some workable solutions to the various problems. It also strived to understand the complementary roles of the state, community, market and civil society in providing access to water for the people.
Mr. Vinay Kumar (IFS), Special Commissioner, Irrigation and CAD Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh and Dr. Jasveen Jairath, Save our Urban Lakes, Hyderabad; were the Guests of Honour. After thought provoking speeches from both the guests of honour, who were instrumental in presenting diverse perspectives to the audience, the participants were split into three groups to discuss on given topics and to present to the entire group, thereafter.
The next stakeholder workshop will be help in New Delhi on July 20th.
Water Justice Meeting, 18th to 22nd April, Pune
Pune: A pre-project consultation on Water Justice issues was organised here between 18th and 22nd April, by Wageningen University, SOPPECOM and the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India. The consultation titled, "Exploring Possibilities of research on Water Justice in South Asia", was held as a prelude to a probable large project on Water Justice, thanks to a grant from the Interdisciplinary Research and Education Fund (IREF). This meeting explored ideas for building alliances and identifying thematic areas of research and collaboration between South Asia and Latin America. Dr. Chanda Gurung Goodrich, Executive Director, SaciWATERs, was present in the consultation meeting. Dr. N. K. Ambujam, Director, CWR and Dr. Hari Shrestha, Principal, Nepal Engineering College, were also present in the meeting attended by forty participants.
Furthermore, the consultation explored in detail the empirical, theoretical and methodological development of the topic of water rights and justice, striving to identify core issues of water rights in the region. The workshop also traced probable partnerships in research, capacity building, policy and publication.
India Water Forum (IWF), 13th to 15th April, 2011, New Delhi, India
New Delhi: The First ever India Water Forum (IWF) was organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in collaboration with several governmental bodies between 13th to 15th April in New Delhi. The forum is to discuss water in the context of climate change pertaining to South Asia. This year's theme was Water Security and Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities.
SaciWATERs was represented by Executive Director, Dr. Chanda Gurung Goodrich and Senior Research Fellow, Dr. Jayati Chourey. Dr. Chanda was one of the 24 panelists for the Indo-German Roundtable on 'Water, Climate Change and Conflict in South Asia', that was organised on 14th April. The roundtable featured prominent names from governmental and non-governmental research circles, including Dr. R. K. Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC and Professor Ramaswamy Iyer, Former Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources.
The Roundtable was meant to be a starting point for increased cooperation within the region, and to explore the possibility of engagement between Germany and South Asia on water conflict issues. Dr. Chanda shared experiences of successful collaboration from the Crossing Boundaries (CB) project. "By means of facilitating faculty and student exchanges, have helped people in the region, understand that they shared many similar problems related to water and climate change. " Dr. Chanda's narratives and learnings from the CB project, was appreciated by many participants, who saw it as a testament of the fact, that many people from the region wanted cooperation in environmental issues, but that the reluctance to cooperate must be taken up initially, at the governmental level.
Regional Consultation Meeting held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 5-6 March
Dhaka: Countries in the Asia-Pacific region in general and the Gangetic Basin in particular are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts owing to their socio-economic and geo-climatic dispositions. This necessitates a significant amount of investments, in terms of financial, technological and human resources, in climate change adaptation in most vulnerable sectors such as agriculture and water. As highlighted by the Bali Action Plan and subsequent roadmaps under Conference of Parties (COP), enhanced action on adaptation also require proper tools for prioritization of adaptation actions with supportive policy and institutional mechanisms. However, at present, the adaptation decision making in most of the Asia-Pacific countries and elsewhere is at nascent stages, due to either lack of tools or limitation in application of available tools to prioritize adaptation actions through adaptation metrics and to formulate policy and institutional frameworks that aids in making sound adaptation decisions at various levels.
Various consultations organized by IGES and its partners with policy makers and adaptation experts have revealed that sound adaptation decision making is possible by instituting a mechanism to measure the progress in adaptation (called adaptation metrics) and policy and institutional framework that utilizes such a measurement system in making adaptation decisions from time to time.
There are already several proposals on what constitutes adaptation metrics and optimal policy and institutional frameworks. However, these remained as proposals and frameworks at best, often limited to application at the project level, and have failed to reach the level of implementation at the institutional levels. Keeping this in view, IGES has initiated a research project in collaboration with BCAS, ICIMOD and TERI to look at various existing examples for measuring adaptation and for policy and institutional frameworks in the Gangetic Basin and to evaluate the application of the same for promoting adaptation.
Keeping the above in view, the current regional workshop was organized with the following objectives: To review the existing adaptation measurement frameworks; to review the currently followed policy and institutional frameworks; and to identify bottlenecks and way forward for scaling up the most practical frameworks for adaptation decision making in agriculture and water sectors
