MEETING OF THE WORLD WATER COUNCIL BOARD OF GOVERNORS
(22-25 June 2006, Marseilles)
The Board of Governors of the World Water Council first met after the General Assembly and Organizational Meeting, at which Loic Fauchon was elected President and it was decided to hold the next World Water Forum in Turkey in March 2009. This Meeting of the Board was held in an absolutely new way, because for the first time the orientation of the Meeting was not on procedural and internal problems of the World Water Council, but on those messages and challenges, which the WWC should facilitate for better understanding and promotion to the World Water Community. It was largely reached owing to sufficiently productive preparation for holding the Meeting, since its materials were distributed beforehand and subjected to preliminary familiarization and e-information exchange between Governors, as well as owing to that progress was made in financial status of the WWC regarding improvement in balance, growth in assets and even a positive result. This enabled to make a turn in understanding of the WWC that it transformed from a “sinking ship” into a promising think tank of the water community.
The agenda of the Meeting included discussing:
- the recommendations of the Central Assembly for the new membership of the Board of Governors;
- a program for development of the projects in principal directions being implemented by the WWC;
- the outcomes of the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico;
- signature of an Agreement between the WWC and Turkish Government on holding the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul.
The recommendations for the new membership of the Board of Governors were made as a result of the discussion of future work priorities by all the WWC members, and they largely reflected common opinion of all the participants in the Assembly. Nevertheless, supplements and remarks were made in some aspects:
a) The “Water Right” Project should include a right to water for food that also implies a right to development and use of irrigated lands. Moreover, it is necessary to largely promote environmental rights to water that first mean rights of rivers and their deltas to existence as natural entities, as right to certain environmental flows in an amount necessary for keeping sanitation norms and saving environmental productivity:
- Right to water should not be orientated on guarantee of existing “status quo”, but on guarantee of providing with water amount needed for providing capability to satisfy needs under economical use meeting the current advanced engineering performance standard;
- Right to water should be accompanied with fulfilling certain obligations by water users, in particular paid water use, rational water use, avoiding pollution and so on.
b) “Financing Water for All” – a project known as the Report of Camdessus was mainly dedicated to water supply. The aspects have been removed to the entire water sector, including irrigation, as a result of the activities of the Gurria group. Here, special attention is given to financing water for socially affected population segments, especially to agricultural development and irrigation. It was noted that a number of countries are going out the group of developing countries and coming near the level of developed ones, affording to refuse foreign assistance. The experience of Morocco, Brazil, and China are very useful for other developing countries.
One of the important additional sources for attracting real donor funds can be considerable use of local experience and potential using donor funds. The given figures on the number of projects aroused an interest and caused a need for publishing them.
c) It is expedient to concentrate the “Water Monitoring” Project on developing information documents and requirements to partners, with whom partnership agreements are to be concluded. Most attention should be given to water productivity indicators at regional, basin, national levels, as movement to survival in the context of growing water shortage is determined by this indicator.
Among other aspects, the attention was given to management and prevention of risks from natural and man-induced disasters; and strengthening the international water rights.
The participants discussed the need for supporting sustainable water supply to irrigated farming in the context of growing competition with hydropower engineering with a view to avoiding a decline in irrigation productivity, and the need for improving its efficiency in case of damage of water supply regimes. It was emphasized that it is necessary to avoid monetization of water priority selection and consider the great socio-economic importance of irrigation and other agricultural user sectors that determines food security, social level of poorest rural population and its employment.
The next Meeting of the Board of Governors will be held on 19-20 August in Stockholm, at which a plan for holding the 5th World Water Forum will be considered and confirmed, an analytical report on the results of the 4th World Water Forum will be presented, new membership for the WWC Bureau will be elected, and a three-year plan will be confirmed.
Prof. V.A. Dukhovny
Director SIC ICWC
Member of the WWC Board of Governors
THE 2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE “LANDSCAPE COVER / SATELLITE IMAGERY AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM APPLICATION IN LANDSCAPE STUDY”
(8-9 June 2006, Ulan Bator, Mongolia)
The Second International Conference “Landscape Cover” took place on 8 June 2006 in Ulan Bator that was organized by GOFO-GOLD and the National University of Mongolia and dedicated to the results of satellite imagery and geographic information system application in Asian countries, with a view to identifying problem zones and developing measures for improving land cover and environmental protection,.
The main objective of the meeting was to attract attention to the role of forest and agricultural lands in water cycle and advantages related to their protection, sustainable development and restoration for ensuring sustainable water-related activities. At the meeting, the participants shared their experience in using best methods and specific measures for integrating forest and agricultural lands in sustainable land and water resources management.
Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of Mongolia I. Erdenebaatar, Mongolian Parliament Member B. Munkhtuya, Vice President of the National University of Mongolia R. Samiya and other officials took part in the conference. The conference was presided by Prof. D. Townshend from the Maryland University, USA.
Among the discussed main problems, there were problems related to management of ecosystems as a part of landscape covers, land cover mapping and changes in an observed period, environment monitoring in Asian countries, a need for further promoting understanding of an ecosystem approach at different levels, putting emphasis on advantages of ecosystem protection, sustainable use and restoration, the importance of new technology development for monitoring, assessment and transfer of experience, multidisciplinary cooperation, a need for considering a number of issues at international level. The participants supported the fact that the importance of solutions based on knowledge, inter alia, causes a need for no-charge information exchange between different levels and sectors. Considerable fragmentation between governmental institutions for ecosystem protection and rational use was also mentioned as one of tasks to be solved. It was said that the key tools for implementing proposed innovations are training and capacity building at levels; more active public participation, use of economic mechanisms such as chargeable ecological services and public sector involvement in landscape improvement.
At the conference, 18 papers prepared by representatives from the National University of Mongolia (T. Chupuun), Mongolian Academy of Sciences (D. Amarsaikhan), Vienna University (M. Harold), London University (M. Taburski), Japanese University of Chiba (T. Takamura), Mongolian Institute of Botany (A. Tsalmon), Taiwanese University (D. Jerelmaa) and others were presented.
A regional workshop “Review of forest and land cover in Asia and Northern Eurasia” took place on 9 June 2006 in the Mongolian-Japanese International Center in Ulan Bator, at which representatives from 11 countries spoke on the mentioned theme. Representative of the SIC ICWC S.A. Nerozin made presentation “Review of landscape cover and problem zones in Central Asia” that told about desertification in Priaralie, soil fertility reduction and degradation in some districts in Hunger steppe and Fergana valley, mudflow danger in submountain areas in Tashkent province (Uzbekistan) and Shimkent province (Kazakhstan) and measures for preventing grave consequences of these events.
S.A. Nerozin
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