Kick-off Conference of the WASA programme in South Africa
From 25 to 27 September, the Kick-off Conference of the BMBF-funded WASA programme WASA-Programms took place in Stellenbosch, South Africa. As part of the programme, seven German-African projects were selected to work in the field of Water Security in Africa. The projects focus on research and development, capacity building, demonstration and innovation activities. In particular, new processes, products and services will be developed.
GERICS is represented in the WASA programme with the joint project WaRisCo WaRisCo, which is coordinated by the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. Together with German and South African partners, the project analyses risks and resilience to hydrological extremes in urban-rural areas in South Africa and develops water and climate services for adapted and sustainable risk management together with stakeholders.
Stakeholder meeting with representatives of the eThekwini Municipality and the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Department of Water and Sanitation (Photo: WaRisCo)
Furthermore, the WaRisCo team held its first meeting near Stellenbosch to discuss the work ahead in the project and to evaluate the first stakeholder meetings in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Pietermaritzburg and Durban. In Durban, for example, the WaRisCo team met with representatives of the eThekwini Municipality and the Director of the Department of Water and Sanitation of the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Office, Mr Singh, for initial discussions.
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the WaRisCo project as part of the "Water Security in Africa" (WASA) funding measure within the framework of the Federal Water Research Program "Wasser: N". Wasser: N contributes to the BMBF strategy "Research for Sustainability (FONA)”.
Further information on the WASA programme