Despite the acknowledgement of groundwater as a key resource for achieving water-related Millennium Development Goals on the African continent, why is there little or no management of the resource? Experts have attributed this problem to: the limited or basic information that exists on aquifer systems and their water storage; the unwillingness or limited capacity of water managers to monitor groundwater abstraction and discharges of contaminants from economic activities and sanitation systems; the inadequacy of national laws in protecting the resource; and a strangely enough a general belief that groundwater is endless because it cannot be seen.

Experiences from groundwater management training courses delivered by the African Groundwater Network in cooperation with the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), Cap-Net and the EU Project ERA-Net SPLASH also show that although lake and river basin organizations (L/RBOs) have expressed the need to address groundwater management they are often not aware of the “how to” of sustainable management of groundwater resources. This has spurred the idea of supporting the process of integrating groundwater management into the mandate of basin organisations with an initial focus on transboundary waters.

The focus on transboundary waters is in part driven by the motivation that transboundary groundwater management could serve as a nucleus for cooperation between neighbouring states. One of the implied activities is supporting information sharing between states by contributing data to existing hydrological databases.

From the onset, some critical questions to be asked are: which basin organisations do already consider groundwater in their water management strategies and what does this imply for the riparian states? What relevant processes are needed to institutionalise groundwater in existing basin organisations? And which capacity development activities are needed for achieving this? Led by BGR, Cap-Net and the partner organisations have begun answering these questions and with a needs assessment for groundwater management in transboundary basin organisations. Following this exercise, adaptation of existing groundwater training materials with capacity building networks, and a training and dialogue workshop with basin managers will be held in early 2012. This will be the kick off of what is expected to be a broader programme on this theme.

For more information please get in touch with the following people: at African Groundwater Network, Richard Owen (richard@zol.co.zw), at BGR: Vanessa Vaessen (Vanessa.vaessen@bgr.de).

Cap-Net held its annual Network Managers Meeting in Hyderabad, India from 14-16 December 2011. It was hosted by the SaciWATERs Cap-Net Network (SCaN). For the first time the meeting was held back to back with a partners meeting which started two days earlier. Both the network managers and Cap-Net’s international partners that were represented appreciated the opportunity they were given to interact face to face and identify activities where they could collaborate. Some of the other highlights of the meeting included the following:

• Partner commitments to programmatic collaboration directly with networks and also via global programmes. The collaboration will include activities on GIS and remote sensing, water integrity; gender; climate change adaptation; water law and sustainable sanitation.
• A preliminary analysis of the current strategic plan was carried out that will be used to develop ideas for a new strategy for Cap-Net and inputs from capacity building networks into the new UNDP Water and Oceans  Governance programme strategy.
• Recommendations on monitoring outcomes were given that will be taken forward to revise tools and reporting so that the programme can illustrate better to its stakeholders, the returns of investing in capacity development; and
• Ideas for new programmes and approaches to courses (or those requiring a renewed focus) to be explored in 2012 included greater use of tools and multimedia to enhance training reach, establishing learning centres at international and regional events, and greater attention to disaster risk reduction, waste management, and coastal zone management.

We welcome the newly elected members of the Management Board: Lilliana Arrieta of REDICA, Damian Indij of LA-WETnet and an alternate member Wangai Ndirangu of WaterCap. For more information contact the Cap-Net secretariat.

This year Thailand experienced its worst floods in half a century that left more than 600 victims. The city of Bangkok was one of the areas heavily devastated. From this and similar experiences, some cities have learnt that flood management has to rank high within their development plans. In their pursuit of effective and adaptable flood management, urban water managers will need competence in the design and use of not only the so called hard-engineered defences but as well non-structural solutions (such as flood zoning, forecasting and alerts and insurance). With half the world now living in urban areas, the capacity to plan and respond to urban floods becomes even more important. Cap-Net and WMO are working to develop this capacity and began their new programme with a training of trainers course hosted by Cap-Net Brasil in Porto Alegre, Brazil from 7-11 November.

One of the participants Silvia Ferreira from Argentina said flooding in her country was a huge problem in the past and in recent years. She cited floods that occurred in Santa Fe (2003 and 2007) and Santiago (March 2011) as well as mud slides and floods in the city of Tartagal in 2009. Likewise, other participants and facilitators had many examples to share. Two sessions were reported as particularly interesting: a role-play on responding to an urban flooding event and an exercise on developing a flood management plan. These sessions illustrated among other things the cooperation required between different agencies that have to respond flood events.

Because the course was a training of trainers many of the participants have planned to cascade the training to their countries and regions. In Kenya for example, a course is planned for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa area in early 2012. A few of the participants had other plans: Alejandro Felizia a Water Resources Engineer from the National Institute of Water in-Argentina, said that the knowledge gained from the course would feed into the first phase of the flood management master plan of Reconquista – a city located north in the Province of Santa Fe.

As the recent training of trainers was for the Africa and Latin American regions, another will be held in Bangkok for the Arab and Asia regions in early 2012. For more information about this upcoming activity contact Jan Yap (jtlyap@yahoo.com.sg) or the Cap-Net secretariat.

Is water a source a source of conflict or cooperation? The water community will give contextual answers going both ways while journalists find appeal in the water wars theory perhaps because water as a source of peace may not make for interesting reading in newspapers. On the other hand, from the International Water Event Database developed by the Oregon State University, one can conclude that in aggregate, the outcome of interactions by riparian states is tilted more towards co-operative behaviour over international waters.

Within countries, reforms towards an integrated approach to water management have always carried the inherent risk that divergent views can become a destructive force towards non-cooperation by water users. Two capacity building networks have been busy with this issue in recent months- training water managers and basin stakeholders in conflict analysis, negotiation and mediation skills.

In India, SaciWATERs Cap-Net Network working with the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India (Forum) and a host of other partners has trained various stakeholders on conflict analysis. Since 2004, the Forum has documented different types of water conflicts in India and have now been moving forward with training. At one of their courses held earlier this year in the state of Orrisa, participants got a first- hand chance to conduct an analysis of conflict between fishermen and the state government over the use and management of Chilika Lake. One of the issues concerned the location of a new lake mouth which was opened to restore salinity regimes. To date, local village fishermen believe that they knew better where to locate this opening and opposed the state lake authority decision which was based on scientific studies. This underscores the importance of the current training work which in part aims at facilitating knowledge based dialogues.

On the other side of the world in Peru, LA-WETnet together with IPROGA (Instituto de Promoción para la Gestión del Agua) and partners have held 3 courses bringing together water resources managers as well as leaders of irrigators associations, administration boards on sanitation services, local authorities and officials from public and private companies. Together these stakeholders were able not only to identify the issues, actors, and processes for their own conflicts and but to go further and develop action plans with strategies and tools for resolving them. One of the courses was held in Apurimac where the region’s authorities are well aware of how water conflicts can escalate into violence. In 2004 they witnessed clashes between the police and residents of the neighbouring region of Ayacucho when a gold mine was planned to expand to include “Cerro Quilish”, a small mountain that has spiritual significance for locals and part of the main watershed that supplies them with water. Following the course, Apurimac’s technical committee on water resources planned to use the knowledge for further development of an Early Warning System for Water Conflict.

From the current global population and economic growth trends and the implied pressures on water resources, the work on conflict management is becoming even more important. For more information about the above conflict courses contact the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India waterconflictforum@gmail.com and Jayati Chourey jayati@saciwaters.org; and for Peru Ms Magdalena Guimac, mguimac@iproga.org.pe and Damian Indij damian.indij@gmail.com

The water sector has been consistent in citing that in order to achieve the MDGs it requires to increase its financial flows and improve governance, management and operations and maintenance practices . Improving financial flows to the sector is not going to be easy under the current economic crisis. With this in mind, WaterCap (the Kenyan capacity building network affiliated to Cap-Net) with support from BFZ, InWent, Cap-Net and EUWI-Finance Working Group convened a training workshop on Innovative Water Sector Financing targeted at water services providers (WSPs) and the national water resources management authority. Wangai Ndirangu, coordinator of WaterCap, said that the workshop provided a contextual overview of financial issues surrounding water resources and services subsectors in Kenya and the East African region, and got participants to understand the functions of commercial accounting and performance monitoring in evaluation of financial risks and credit access.

During the discussions, participants learnt that revenue generated by WSPs had increased considerably (for example in the city of Nairobi from 80 million Kenya shilling per month in 2004 to 500 million in 2010), but without attracting proportionate interest from financial institutions. Noting that water sector funding from traditional sources is diminishing, participants were exposed to the requirements for accessing private investment. Private commercial financial institutions were invited to interact with water managers. Some of the main lessons learnt which participants considered taking forward included:

• Developing, Public Private Partnerships which, though primarily aimed at matching private resources for investments, offer additional gains by improving management efficiency. Case studies of two water utilities -Nyeri and Embu exemplified this point.
• Re-use of wastewater and energy efficiency measures present a new front for involvement of private investors and operators thus providing for risk sharing. This was also considered an effective method for accessing expertise and technology.

For more information on the course and its outcomes, contact Wangai Ndirangu at wangai@batiment.co.ke

Cap-Net is happy to announce that a new funding agreement has been signed with the Government of the Netherlands through the Directorate-General for International Cooperation. Under this agreement, UNDP will receive funding for Cap-Net to the amount of US$ 5,625,000 for 2012- 2014. Combined with existing funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency,this  brings contributions to Cap-Net’s budget for Phase 3 close to 11 million dollars. These contributions are well appreciated  especially noting that they have been committed during a global economic crisis.Thank you to our funding partners.

To all Cap-Net friends and partners: may this end of year be rich with the laughter and closeness of friends and family. We thank you all for the good collaboration we have had in 2011 and look forward to an even more rewarding partnership in the coming year. Happy holidays.