Trainings

Women and men working in the global 4D (diplomacy, defence, development, and disaster response) community, as well as government officials and local communities in the at-risk countries, need to have the required capacities in order to understand and act on water-related security risks, and to participate actively in dialogue processes.

The Water, Peace and Security partnership organised a workshop for Malian stakeholders held in Bamako from July 2nd - 4th, 2019 in cooperation with GIZ. The workshop was attended by experts from governmental organisations such as the Niger River Basin Agency and the Directorate General of Civil Protection, as well as by representatives of NGOs such as the Malian Red Cross. The workshop focused on water and security in the Inner Niger Delta, a fertile area on which 2 million people depend for their livelihoods.

During the workshop, methods and tools developed or adapted by the WPS partnership were presented to help participants better understand the links between security issues and water scarcity in the Inner Niger Delta, with the goal of helping them identify and implement concrete actions. One  method presented was Group Model Building, which can be used to pool the knowledge of experts to jointly analyse the causes and effects of changes in water availability, including security implications, in the Inner Niger Delta. Hydrological modeling tools developed for the Inner Niger Delta were applied to identify the potential impacts of the extension of the irrigated areas by the Office du Niger and the construction and operation of the Fomi Dam in Guinea on the availability of water in the Inner Niger Delta.

Human response models were used to help workshop participants understand the various ways that changes in water availability impact the livelihoods of local communities. Based on the insights gained through the application of WPS methods and tools, the participants developed skills in conflict-sensitive planning. Additional projects and follow-up are planned, including a local training workshop in Mopti and a project to support the cultivation of animal fodder in the Inner Niger Delta. Additional information, in French, is available in a summary created for Malian stakeholders.