St. George’s, 09th May 2016: The Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment jointly with the German Agency for International Co-operation (GIZ) launched the Grenada Water Stakeholder Platform (G-WaSP) on the 03rd May 2016 at the Public Workers Union Building in Tanteen.
The G-WaSP initiative functions as an umbrella partnership, bringing together all key stakeholders in Grenada, including public and private sector parties and community partners, involved in water resource management, major water usage and wastewater production.
Dieter Rothenberger, Head of GIZ programmes in Grenada, stated, “With a predicted reduction of approximately 20% of annual rainfall within this century, and a potential increase of extreme weather events due to climate change, Grenada is acutely vulnerable to risks related to water security.
These risks can have severe impacts on Grenada’s economic development, since sufficient water is a key ingredient for all economic sectors, but in particular for the tourism and agricultural sectors as well as food and beverage production.”
The approach G-WASP– which is the Grenada branch of the global International Water Stewardship Programme (IWASP) – will take is to identify, develop and implement measures to reduce the water risk for companies and communities, improve water availability and reduce pollution and flood events.
These processes will be undertaken and funded within G-WASP as partnership approaches jointly by public and private sector businesses and organizations as well as the local community groups and coordinated by GIZ.
The identification process will make use of a computerized water risk model which will highlight the potential effects to infrastructure and land and give an indication of economic costs Grenada is likely to face.
Due to Grenada’s water situation as a small island, many approaches and partnership ideas focus on a whole watershed linked to the marine environment (or even to Marine protected Areas, MPAs) in a ridge to reef approach.
At the Launch event, Mr Jan Verweyen, regional Manager of IWASP from GIZ Headquarters in Germany presented the overall IWASP concept, while other stakeholders provided details of potential areas for partnership in Grenada, such as the Grand Etang Lake, Morne Rouge and Richmond Hill Watershed.
G-WaSP is being implemented in Grenada by the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment jointly with the German Agency for International Co-operation (GIZ), as part of the global IWASP programme, which is being implemented by GIZ Germany and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and UK – Aid.
