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dam-l Water panel formed/LS
Africa-at-Large
African Water Management Forum Created
Panafrican News Agency
May 31, 1999
Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - An African Water
Resources Management Forum has been created in Nairobi involving
experts from 15 countries. The forum was
created in the Kenyan capital last Friday at the end of the Africa Water
Resources Management Policy Conference.
A news release from the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) office in Nairobi said the forum will
serve as an organ "for the exchange of
knowledge among African water resources management professionals and
practitioners."
An interim task force will be set up to
guide the activities of the Forum and to contribute to the definition of a
long-term African vision for water for the
year 2025, it added.
In the course of the meeting, ministers
and officials met in plenary sessions to discuss national water resource
policy
reforms.
They recognized the need for adequate
strategies to deal with the prevailing problems of water scarcity and
equitable
distribution, water pollution, watershed
degradation, water weeds and hyacinth control as well as the environmental
aspects of water management.
The issue of trans-boundary water
resources management was also discussed. Discussions were also held on
economics and financing; regulation:
statutory and customary water law; institutions; and emerging and
innovative
arrangements for water resources
management and sustainable utilization.
The World Bank agreed to identify and
support, on a short term basis, an African water resources consultant who
will
serve as a temporary secretariat to the
task force of the Forum. The goal of the secretariat will be to facilitate
sharing
of knowledge on selected areas of water
resources management.
The Conference was sponsored by the World
Bank and the Government of Kenya in cooperation with UNEP, as part
of the Global Water Partnership.
It was attended by representatives from
Angola, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya,
Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania,
Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan,
Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Also present were representatives of the
Governments of the Netherlands, UK, Sweden and US.
Copyright (c) 1999 Panafrican News Agency.
Distributed via Africa News Online (www.africanews.org). For
information about the content or for
permission to redistribute, publish or use for broadcast, contact the
publisher.
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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