As part of regional cooperation efforts for the sustainable development of the Amazon Basin, on May 30 and 31 in Quito, Ecuador will bring together national actors in the area of water resources to identify priority actions for the implementation of the Strategic Action Program (SAP) in the Ecuadorian Amazon, with a view to the shared management of transboundary waters by the eight countries that make up the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO).
The event in Quito is organized by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Mobility and of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition and by ACTO.
Through the Strategic Action Program (SAP), the member countries of ACTO – Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela – seek to ensure the integrated and sustainable management of transboundary water resources in the Amazon Basin, taking into account climate variability and change. The program is implemented through the Amazon Basin Project and is run by ACTO in partnership with the countries, with implementation by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
The main objective of the SAP Implementation Workshop is to promote strategic actions aimed at strengthening Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) capacity at national level, as well as strengthening the resilience of local communities to the challenges of climate change. It also seeks to ensure the availability of consistent information throughout the Amazon Basin to support decision-making in the field of regional cooperation.
SAP Implementation Workshops have been taking place since August 2023 in all Amazonian countries to prepare governments and societies for integrated and participatory water management in the Amazon region. Divided into working groups, participants formulate recommendations for the SAP implementation process, combining technical and cultural dimensions and seeking to identify opportunities for regional collaboration, thus contributing to the formulation of National Action Plans (NAP).
The NAP will be a document aligned with national policies and will cover various actions within the framework of implementing the SAP. These include institutional strengthening for IWRM, an IWRM Training Program, monitoring of the basin’s water resources, as well as a focus on cultural aspects related to water and climate change adaptation measures in the Amazon Basin.
It should be noted that gender equality will be a cross-cutting element in all of the PAE and NAP actions. During the event in Quito, professionals working in the area of integrated water resources management and other stakeholders will be trained to integrate gender equality into water-related policies, plans, programs and projects.
