The climate crisis is a water crisis and therefore, a food crisis
By Dr Krista Singleton-Cambage (WWF-Australia) and Michael Wilson (Australian Water Partnership – AWP) On 31 October, the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change began in Glasgow. COP26 delegates are meeting—some in person, some virtually—under the shadow of what the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called a “code […]
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Increasing water availability and security for Indian smallholder farmers
The Australian Water Partnership (AWP) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) are supporting a group of Australian experts to collaborate with counterparts in India to increase the availability and security of water for India’s smallholder farmers. Smallholders operating in rainfed agricultural systems in India are highly vulnerable to rainfall variability, with water […]
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Improving management of groundwater resources in Laos and the Sekong Basin
Commencing in March 2021, the Australian Water Partnership (AWP) is supporting the Department of Water Resources (DWR), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos) to develop a national Groundwater Profile and a pilot Sustainable Groundwater Management Plan (SGMP) for the Sekong Basin. Laos is undergoing rapid development that heavily relies […]
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Addressing water scarcity in Indian villages through local groundwater champions
Since 2019, the Australian Water Partnership has been supporting the rollout of Managing Aquifer Recharge and Sustaining Groundwater Use through Village-level Intervention (MARVI) in 20,000 villages across seven Indian states. The activity is being implemented as part the Government of India’s Atal Bhujal Yojana / Atal Groundwater Program national project. Groundwater is an important source […]
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Modern irrigation pilot to benefit Vietnam’s drought affected provinces
The Water Efficiency Improvement in Drought Affected Provinces (WEIDAP) project—an Asian Development Bank and Government of Vietnam project also supported by the Australian Water Partnership (AWP)—has been going strong for the past four years, including throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Developed in coordination and consultation with the Government of Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development […]
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Australia and UN Food and Agriculture Organization renew partnership
On 8 December 2020, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Australian Water Partnership, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) was extended for a further two and a half years (until June 2023). The MoU—originally established in December 2017—was signed […]
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Benchmarking irrigation system performance in Cambodia
The Australian Water Partnership recently supported the development of a system to assess the performance of the irrigation sector in Cambodia as part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) NextGen Program. Infrastructure expansion, rehabilitation and modernisation is critical to addressing water scarcity and increasing productivity in Cambodia but increasing competition for financial support […]
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Australia and Thailand collaborate on irrigation water sharing to manage water scarcity
At the start of 2020, Thailand was in the midst of its worst drought in the last four decades. About half of the major reservoirs in the country were below 50 per cent of capacity, and low river levels meant saltwater intrusion affected drinking water supplies and farming. There has also been insufficient water to […]
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Partnering to support water sector reforms and applying Australian expertise in Central Asia
Uzbekistan is undergoing an economic and social transformation. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev is prosecuting an aspirational reform agenda spanning numerous sectors of the country’s economy. Reflecting the optimism of many observers, The Economist declared Uzbekistan its 2019 ‘country of the year’, an award that ‘celebrates improvement’. In 2020, it is the turn of Uzbekistan’s agricultural water […]
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