G-WADI Provides Input to Friend Inter-Group Coordination Committee Meeting

Dec. 7, 2020
Friend Water

The Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme is beginning the eighth and final year of its eighth phase (IHP-VIII; Water Security), and strategic planning is near completion for IHP-IX, which will cover the period 2022-2029. In conjunction with this transition period, the Inter-Group Coordination Committee of IHP’s FRIEND-Water (Flow Regimes from International Experimental and Network Data) initiative Meeting met on the 25th of November to evaluate their current activities and strategize over future ones. Other IHP initiatives, including G-WADI, were invited to intervene to identify synergies with FRIEND activities.

Like FRIEND, G-WADI has a global network and regional networks, and while they are not identical, they overlap reasonably well. This provides a context for collaboration on topics that FRIEND is strong in, such as hydrologic variability, flow regimes and climate change impacts, in the semi-arid regions that G-WADI focuses on. Such collaboration could include:

  • Joint, on-line/UNESCO open learning training on mutually intersecting themes;
  • Combine FRIEND’s strengths in in-situ data/information/networks with G-WADI’s strengths in satellite-driven precipitation and modeling;
  • Joint events/session(s) in international meetings;
  • In particular, Eastern Africa represents an opportunity for the two programs. The Khartoum Water Research Centre and Water Harvesting Center have been coordinating events for both major initiatives - with the backing of the UNESCO Khartoum office. Co-sponsoring an activity there could be "low-hanging fruit".