Focus Media (Kigali)
Helen Mwihoreze
12 November 2008
The Rwanda Water Partnership has held its first national meeting to elect the national committee members. The Rwanda Water Partnership (RWP) is part of the Global Water Partnership (GWP), a group of countries around the world striving to ensure proper use of water and management of its resources.
Jean Marie Vianney Mushinzimana, who represented the ministry of natural resources, stressed the importance of uniting with GWP. "This initiative has come at the right time, when MINIRENA has the funds to facilitate projects or NGO's in natural resources management," he said.
He added that the government is willing to work closely with RWP to solve conflicts over water, which are increasing as the population increases and the use of different technologies in agricultural production changes water flows in the streams and rivers. At the same time, water-borne diseases have become the main cause of morbidity in all the countries in the region, where poor sanitation compounds health problems in both urban and rural environments.
During the meeting, the regional coordinator of GWP Eastern Africa, Simon Thuo, said all countries in GWP Eastern Africa face similar severe water constraints whereby they are plagued by deforestation and poor agriculture practices, leading to reduced retention periods, surface runoffs and soil cover losses.
Thuo also pointed out that this results in other serious problems, such as a drop in the per capita income in the region, and threatens sustainable livelihoods. The RWP committee, he said, will help deal with such problems.
Frank Habineza, the national coordinator of Nile Basin Discourse Forum (NBDF), said that after recognizing the urgent need for RWP, the elected committee will help bring together all actors in water, sanitation and environment sectors and giving them one voice that can be represented both in the civil society platform and also in the government initiatives, as well as enhancing resources mobilization and capacity building amongst all concerned stakeholders.
The committee that was elected includes members of the public sector, the private sector, research institutions, local NGO's, development partners, media, women organizations, local governments and international NGO's.
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