NARBO

NARBO held a regional session on IWRM in Bangkok for the 7th WWF

 

Koichiro Omoto
NARBO secretariat

   The 7th World Water Forum will be held in Daegu and in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea in this April. In this forum, it is announced that there will also be hold specific theme sessions for political, thematic, and regional themes and so on. NARBO is assigned to hold the thematic process session on 14th April and the regional session on 13th April each with different organizations. Therefore we will need to summarize and express regional messages in these sessions by collecting regional practices, experiences and opinions.

   NARBO held a session on IWRM in Asia Pacific region in Bangkok on 18th February supported by Thailand Water Resources Association (TWRA). This meeting aimed at discussing regional messages by collecting regional practices and future directions on IWRM.

   About 20 representatives from Central Asia, China, South Asia, South East Asia attended this session and it was kindly chaired by Dr.Keizrul Bin Abdullah, the chairperson of NARBO. Dr. Apichart Anukularmphai, the president of Thailand Water Resources Association gave an opening speech on the current situation and lessons learnt of IWRM implementation in Thailand. Following this speech, current practice and future direction of IWRM were introduced from each participant. For example, following topics were presented.

 

	Current practice of IWRM in Central Asia region
	Recent issues and challenges on water resources management in China
	Future direction of water resources management in South Asia region

   Adding to this, NARBO members also introduced and expressed its opinions on IWRM situation in each river basin. For example, Mr. Kergkeart Kumarasingha, Director of Upper Mun River Basin Coordination and Management Division, Thailand gave a speech on the River Basin Organization Benchmarking Program in their organization.

   Dr. Khin Ni Ni Thein, Founder and President of Water, Research and Training Centre, Myanmar gave a comment that people who were engaged in water business should be M2T which meant double moral principles with capability of technology.

Mr. Masaki Mitsuhashi of ADB Youth Group addressed the necessity of investing for young generations involved in water business.

 

   Participants ardently exchanged opinions and made discussions based on these reports.

 

   NARBO secretariat shared general information of 7th WWF and explained necessity of regional "key messages" to the world. As it was difficult to summarize regional messages in this conference, the secretariat decided to call for further opinions to the 7th WWF. The additional comments on regional practices and any other matters related to IWRM should reach the secretariat by 6th March, 2015.

 

   With regard to the questionnaire, we have received it from SWMA (Malaysia), MRC (Lao PDR) and PJT I(Indonesia) in addition to the above as of now. It would be appreciated if you would send any related messages to us by the same deadline as above.