Both ENDS
Competition over water access is growing. With water as the key to sustainable development, it is very important that in de coming months clear agreements are made about world wide water cooperation. On World Water Day, held on March 22nd in The Hague, important decisions were made and goals were set.
26 Civil society organisations (CSOs), including Both ENDS, have joined forces and sent a position paper containing 11 recommendations to Minister Ploumen of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation. The recommendations address access, sustainability, good governance and finance of clean drinking water and toilets.
Both ENDS, also on behalf of FERN, NCIV and Milieudefensie, sent a letter to Vivianne Heijnen, the State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management, about the MTCS certificate. In practice, this Malaysian timber certificate appears to tolerate the violation of indigenous land rights and intimidation of indigenous organisations. The Netherlands should therefore suspend the approval of MTCS in its purchasing policy, among other things.
The impacts of climate change are largely mediated by water. Changes in precipitation and glacial melt patterns, variations in river flow, increased occurrence of droughts and floods, and sea level rise all impact both urban and rural communities in developed, emerging, and especially developing countries. The book:'Adaptation to Climate Change through Water Management: Capacity, Equity and Sustainability' presents evidence of the emerging wealth of knowledge and experience on adaptation to climate change from across the world. It identifies common barriers and bridges for local adaptation to climate change through water resources management, looking at adaptive capacity, equity, and sustainability.
In March 2009 Both ENDS attended the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul, where we organised events on the right to water, the so-called 'negotiated approach' to catchment management, and the alignment of infrastructure related lobby of southern civil society groups.
The governmental body that is responsible for the management of water resources in Ghana, the Water Resources Commission (WRC), praises the ADAPTS method in which Both ENDS and partners are actively involved. In the preface of the Dayi River Basin Plan that was launched at the end of 2011, the commission expresses hopes for the extension of this method, currently being tested in a pilot in the Dayi river basin, to other river basins in Ghana.
