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News and Events > Recent news > Archive 2009 > Asian Project proposals at first Asian Regional Working Conference

Asian Project proposals at first Asian Regional Working Conference
7 December 2009 - ‘Meeting and Greening Challenges in Water Security, Food Security and Climate change for Asian women’ was the title of the first WfWP Asian Regional Working Conference that was held from 6-8 November 2009. The conference was hosted by WfWP member NetWwater in Sri Lanka

Project proposals
At the Working Conference many project proposal were presented by (Women) NGO’s from:

  • Nepal (WPlus)
  • Sri Lanka (NetWwater)
  • Philipines (WOPD/4VO)
  • China (All China Women’s Federation)
  • Korea (Korea Water Forum)

These presentations are downloadable at the bottom of this text.

Their cases were further developed in working sessions with all participants contributing with their specific knowledge and experience. This way of approach project proposals is very specific for Women for Water Partnership, whose members organise every year two WfWP Regional Working Conferences in a different region around the world. 

Participants 
The participants of the conference in Sri Lanka were from many different countries. They were all involved in decision making in water, environment and the agriculture sector and invited delegates from women’s organisations in Asia.
Amongst the local invitees there was a team of experts from the Government sector, Private Sector, Donor Agencies, local Universities and activists contributed to the ARWC as resource persons. Opportunities were given where ever possible for mid career women water professionals from Sri Lanka  to be part of this activity as a capacity building initiative.

Keynote speaker
The keynote speaker, Mrs Dr Shyamala Abeyratne together with the thematic papers gave an Asian overview of the issues to be discussed: women and agriculture, women and water quality, drinking water supply and sanitation and capacity development of women and water.

Walk the talk
The sub theme of the conference was ‘Walk the talk’. In line with this sub theme all PR material was environmental friendly:
One tree per participant was planted in an ecosystem damaged by illicit river sand mining in Sri Lanka with the collaboration of local community and religious groups.

  • Plastic use was minimized and plastic -bottled water was replaced by less damaging reusable containers during the field trip. 'Say no to bottled water. Use a water bottle' was the theme.
  • Conference venue was selected with their on going green initiatives (such as reuse of waste water and composting) in mind and the conference team will work with them on potential areas of improvement.
  • Recycled paper and material will be used wherever appropriate. Both the Field Notebook and the Conference Notebook was of recycled paper and board.
  • The Name Tag was made of raw cloth. It was designed to be re-used as a pouch to carry passport, cell phone and airline ticket.
  • All paper and other materials left over was sent for recycling.
  • The conference bag was made of cloth and was designed in a manner to encourage users to reuse it.
  • The 21 feet long conference backdrop was made completely of raw cloth and painted instead of the usual digital print on synthetic material.
  • Youth groups within the sand mining affected river basin groups were invited to the conference and encouraged to interact with the conference organizers for green initiatives.
    At the 6th of November a fieldtrip was organised to the sites relevant to the Sri Lanka case study on river sand mining.

Media 
A range of advocacy and media activities have been successfully undertaken. The Chair of NetWwater, Kusum Athukorala and the President of WfWP, Alice Bouman-Dentener were for example interviewed about the Asian Regional Working Conference on a television breakfast show.
Every day a special conference paper was printed. In the first one the First Lady, Madame Shiranthi Wickramasinghe Rajapakse, the esteemed chair and members of NetWwater and the president of WfWP wrote an article about the importance of the conference.  

NetWwater
The host of the conference, NetWwater (Network of Women Water Professionals) in Sri Lanka, is an organisation of women volunteers devoted to promotion of the Dublin-Rio principles of holistic water management. They are working towards promoting gender in the water sector through advocacy, capacity building and awareness raising through state and community partnerships.

Download the presentations from: 

And:

Look at the film:

 



Printable version | Last update on june 30th, 2010
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