WaterAid Bangladesh hosts the first Global ‘Watershed Annual Partners Learning Meeting’ in Dhaka

on
3 October 2017
In
Bangladesh
WaterAid Bangladesh hosts the first Global ‘Watershed Annual Partners Learning Meeting’ in Dhaka

Watershed Annual Partners Learning Meeting 2017, the first of its kind after the programme was initiated early this year, ended with new aspersions after a 3 day affair at a capital’s hotel in Baridhara, Dhaka. 

As in-country lead, WaterAid Bangladesh organised this three-day long international event on behalf of the Watershed consortium, where around 60 professionals from countries Netherlands, Kenya, Uganda, Mali, India, USA and Bangladesh joined to share their till date programmatic achievements, and reflect on them to learn between Work Packages and activities at programme level. 

The programme began with the welcome speech of Dr Md Khairul Islam, Country Director of WaterAid Bangladesh and Patrick Moriarty, The Chief Executive of IRC. Alongside the Government (BRDB, DPHE, WARPO) and Civil Society representatives (FANSA-BD, WSSCCB, DSK, BWA) of Bangladesh, a number of international delegates from different countries including representatives from Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Simavi, IRC, Wetlands International and AKVO, DORP, GWA and WaterAid Bangladesh joined this event.

A multi-stakeholder consultation on WASH and IWRM had also taken place on day II where discussions centred around the ‘WASH and IWRM situation in Bangladesh and way forward’, with especial focus on CSO’s role in L&A to make service providers accountable. The learning meeting infused great learning to international delegates, taking the Bangladeshi stakeholders’ experiences and perspectives into account.

The consultation session was facilitated by Dr Md Khairul Islam, Country Director of WaterAid Bangladesh along with Sara Ahrari, Senior Programme Officer, WASH Asia, SIMAVI. Mr. Peter de Veries, First Secretary and Thematic Expert Water, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Bangladesh had also been present.

Watershed - Empowering Citizens, is a five year long policy and advocacy and CSOs capacity strengthening programme where WaterAid is working as in-country lead in Bangladesh amongst the other strategic partners - Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Simavi, IRC, Wetlands International and AKVO.  Through this programme, WaterAid looks to strengthen civil society organisations so that all citizens, including the most marginalised, can benefit from sustainable services. It also focuses to enhance citizens’ ability to obtain information so they can advocate for change based on reliable, accurate data.