To close out 2014, UNEP hosted the Executive Director of the Water Research Commission in South Africa to share lessons learned from more than twenty years of IWRM experience in South Africa with stakeholders in North Darfur. This visit supports UNEP efforts to demonstrate Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in practice.

Over two weeks, multiple events brought together various stakeholders responsible for natural resource and water infrastructure management in North Darfur to discuss IWRM, how to apply it in practice, and to learn from the South African experience. Discussions around water and its uses were held with women’s groups, traditional leaders, and other community-based organizations. A series of technical training sessions on the science, policy and institutional foundations for comprehensive catchment management also took place.

Together, these events allowed collective knowledge and shared ideas and insights to surface. Similarly, they also helped to facilitate relationships between different stakeholders around the issue of water, including a visioning of how each group sees the future of water and water management in Wadi El Ku, the largest seasonal river course in North Darfur. Important feedback from participants and a better sense of the value of water was generated.

Supported by the European Union, the overall aim of UNEP’s work in the Wadi El Ku region is to create a model, based on UNEP’s experience in Sudan, of how improved natural resource management can enhance livelihoods, and contribute to peace and stability by strengthening resilience in agriculture and agriculture-related activities. This project seeks to support communities to better manage their soil, water and forest resources, and to address environmental degradation in the area.

More information: Cassidy.travis@unep.org