By Jérôme Koundouno, IUCN West and Central Africa Regional Office
It’s my first time participating in a World Water Forum. And first time means discovering!
This event in Marseille is a very good opportunity to meet people: experts, young professionals, old classmates, and also IUCN colleagues from other offices. We all work on the same topics and issues throughout the world even if we do not know physically each other: the World Water Forum makes it possible! That is great!
Meeting people means exchanges, and exchanges mean dialogue. And it works out nicely because IUCN is involved in dialogues with stakeholders in river basins to promote democratic and efficient management. Particularly in West Africa where IUCN-PACO (Central and West Africa Programme) with partners are working to better plan, build and manage large water infrastructure. Dialogue and involving all stakeholders, that is the best way to move forward…
Today I attended, among the others, the launch of the BRIDGE platform. Very promising. And tomorrow, we are planning a busy day on West African issues: a press conference in the morning to present the publication ‘Sharing water, sharing benefits’, and then in the afternoon a roundtable to share experiences on dam reservoir governance. Let’s see what happens…