Elevating river basin management and cooperation in the Hindu Kush Himalaya Region: The Ganges River Basin

About the event

With the Australian Water Partnership (AWP), we are implementing the project, ‘Elevating river basin governance and cooperation in the HKH region’, with the aim to strengthen transboundary river basin management arrangements and enhance cooperation between the major river basins with headwaters originating in the HKH region.

As part of the project, we are organising a series of three semi-structured knowledge exchange dialogues, with one dialogue for each of the three focus basins – Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra River basins. This dialogue will focus on the Ganges River basin.

Under ICIMOD’s technical guidance, a consortium of Australian project partners – eWater, the Institute for Study and Development Worldwide (IFSD), and Aither – is producing basin assessment reports for the Brahmaputra, Ganges, and Indus basins, describing emerging practices for overcoming barriers to effective and inclusive transboundary river basin management and climate challenges, and providing recommendations for strengthening river basin cooperation and resilience.

Objectives

• Share practical examples of enhanced basin management (decision-making processes, tools, policies, and best practices) from across and beyond the HKH region that support improved transboundary river basin management within individual basins. This may include exemplary groups and collaborations such as committees and commissions.
• Stimulate forward-looking discussions on further potential opportunities for collaboration to enhance river basin management, in support of ICIMOD as an enabler of the HKH Call to Action (especially Action 1 – Regional cooperation).

Partners and resource persons

Ganges River basin                     Aither and Philippus Wester, ICIMOD

Brahmaputra River basin          Institute for Study and Development Worldwide (IFSD) and Neera Shrestha Pradhan, ICIMOD

Indus River basin                        eWater and Arun Bhakta Shrestha, ICIMOD

Tentative agenda