UNESCO-IHP and IGRAC has organised a two days meeting with the Regional Coordinators of the TWAP (Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme) Groundwater Component, in order to start up the data collection process.
Regional Coordinators from the Americas Region, Central-Western Africa Sub-region and Southern-Eastern Africa Sub-region together with the project coordinator and members of the core group, participated in the meeting held on the 16th and 17th of October in Delft (The Netherlands).
The meeting aimed to present and discuss with the regional coordinators the TWAP groundwater component methodology. In addition, an extensive part of the meeting was dedicated to discuss and agree on the most suitable approach for the project implementation, focus the attention on practical issues related to the data collection process. During the meeting the Regional Coordinators shared with the group their genuine knowledge of their regions, putting in perspective the approach proposed by the TWAP Groundwater core group.
One of the key elements of the data collection process is the design of a questionnaire. This tool will facilitate harmonisation in the information to be compiled for the assessment. IGRAC (International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre), as the organization appointed to coordinate the data collection and information management presented a first draft of the questionnaire. This first version of the questionnaire was tested by the regional coordinators, whose feed-back will be included in the final version.
Finally, the group agreed on next steps to follow, as well as the structure and objectives of the coming Regional Workshops. During these meetings the preliminary results from the data collection should be presented, in order to trigger transboundary cooperation between participating countries.