5th Virtual Roundtable on Digital Transformation for Transboundary River Basin Development Organisations: How to strengthen the sharing and pooling of data produced by the multiple actors of the water sector?
The webinar is only available upon registration HERE.
Water resources and ecosystems are under increasing pressure from population growth, economic development and climate change.
Given the need to ensure a reliable supply of water to populations, the interdependence with the energy and food sectors and the need to protect ecosystems…, it is fundamental to facilitate access to data on the state of water resources and ecosystems, uses and infrastructures, and to be able to cross-reference them in particular with socio-economic data, in order to facilitate the governance of water resources and public information.
As pointed out in the “Handbook on Water Information Systems” published by INBO in collaboration with UNESCO, WMO and the “World Water Data Initiative” (WWDI), the main problem is that, regardless of the country or the basin (national or transboundary), these data are systematically produced by multiple institutions intervening at various levels (local, national, international) according to varying protocols.
It is therefore fundamental to define strategies and procedures facilitating the pooling of data produced by the various actors while respecting the role of each, as well as the completion of the data available through the use of satellite data, "crowd sourcing", development of self-monitoring…
After a reminder of the issues related to data sharing for the management of water resources and the environment by the representatives of INBO, the Geneva Water Hub, WMO, the OECD, and the UNECE, this webinar will be an opportunity to discuss several case studies that have made it possible in various national and international contexts to promote exchanges and lead to a real valuation of data while developing win-win relationships between institutions.
In particular, a pilot project to support the Gambia River Development Organization (OMVG) and its four Member States (Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal) will be presented in the framework of an initiative on river basin agencies for the 21st century and digital transformation, co-led by the Geneva Water Hub and the Pôle eau Dakar.
This innovative project was launched in early 2021 by the OMVG with the support of the Geneva Water Hub, the International Office for Water and INBO to develop integrated management and cross-valuation of data, according to the principles of subsidiarity and interoperability between transboundary and national systems. An OMVG regional portal is being co-created with a regional working group meeting virtually on a digital platform. The methodology could be replicated in other basins in Africa and around the world.
Full programme available below.