Part I - FTP Directory Listing - WMO

6 ABRIDGED FINAL REPORT OF THE THIRTEENTH SESSION OF THE COMMISSION FOR HYDROLOGYCooperation with international organizations5.6 The Commission noted with satisfaction the active role of WMO, among otherinternational organizations, in promoting and advocating the importance of hydrologicalobservations, water resources assessment and flood forecasting and management to variouswater-related issues. That role allowed WMO to establish fruitful collaboration and cooperationlinks with various United Nations agencies, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmentalorganizations and donors to support NMHSs on sustainable water resources management andyielded benefits to all parties. The Commission expressed its satisfaction at the synergeticleveraging that the HWRP had been able to generate by working with other agencies.5.7 The Commission was pleased to note that WMO was continuing the long-standingcooperation with the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. It noted the advantageaccrued from that collaboration based on the number of activities in which the two were involved. Itnoted that they would jointly organize a session on “Data for All” at the Fifth World Water Forum, tobe held in Istanbul, Turkey, in March 2009. It also noted that WMO, jointly with the Japan WaterForum and the International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM), was cocoordinatorof the Forum’s Global Changes and Risk Management theme.5.8 The Commission also noted the close cooperation between WMO and the InternationalStrategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR). The ISDR representative expressed the importance of theHWRP activities in the field of flood management and hoped that the Associated Programme onFlood Management would actively participate in the second session of the Global Platform forDisaster Risk Reduction to be held in Geneva in June 2009. He noted it would provide a venue toshare knowledge and wisdom in disaster risk reduction for policymaking at the global level and itwas important to link with the wider disaster risk reduction community beyond the water sector.5.9 The Commission was pleased to know of the WMO cooperation with the AfricanDevelopment Bank (AfDB) and the African Union Commission (AUC). The AfDB representativeexpressed appreciation for the WMO support to the Bank on organizing the First African WaterWeek, held in Tunis in March 2008, and for closely working with the AfDB in establishing theAfrican Water Facility. He noted that the potential technical expertise in WMO provided anopportunity to AfDB to work together to develop adequate capacity in countries for prediction andmanagement of disasters as well as adaptation to climate change. The AUC representativeexpressed appreciation to WMO and other partners for their support to the AUC on developing the“Climate Information for Development – ClimDev Africa” programme and requested WMO tocontinue its cooperation and collaboration with AUC to support its implementation. Given theimportant work being done by HWRP in flood management, the AUC representative also stressedthe need for close collaboration with WMO on the African Union’s African Regional Strategy onDisaster Risk Reduction through the WMO Disaster Risk Reduction Programme.5.10 The Commission placed on record its gratitude to various financial partners, such asGovernments of Japan, France, the Netherlands, the United States, Spain, Finland, Switzerland,Germany and Italy, for supporting various activities under the HWRP. It also expressed itsappreciation to the European Union and the African Development Bank in providing financialsupport to the WHYCOS programme. It expressed the hope that the WMO Secretariat wouldcontinue to make efforts towards maintaining those relations and soliciting further support andextrabudgetary resources for various activities under the HWRP.5.11 The representative of the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering andResearch (IAHR) expressed the interest of the Association in continuing to contribute to the CHyproject on the assessment of the performance of flow measurements instruments and techniques.The Commission took note of the offer of IAHR to cooperate with WMO in organizing short coursesdedicated to engineers, hydrologists and staff to Hydrological Services about principles andmethods of stream gauging. In such courses WMO references and documents would be presentedwith the objective to disseminate WMO QMF–Hydrology technical guidance documents (TGDs).Those TGDs would also be included in university curricula.