NTNC Chairman Dr. Krishna Prasad Oli chaired the session on “Integrated River Basin Management in the Hindu Kush Himalaya” at the Cryosphere Pavilion during COP27, the UN Climate Change Conference of Parties, that is ongoing in Egypt. The session was organized by ICIMOD and Australian Water Partnership with a focus on Ganga, Indus and Brahmaputra river basins.
Panelists at the session were Mr. Kewal Prasad Bhandari, Secretary, National Planning Commission, Nepal, Ms. Aisha Khan, Chief Executive, Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change, Pakistan, and Dr. Jatinder Kaur Arora, Executive Director, Punjab State Council for Science & Technology, India.
The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) is the source of ten major river systems in Asia, touching the lives of over 1.5 billion people living downstream. However the recent outlook of the world's glaciers, which are the main source of rivers in the HKH, is devastating to say the least.
Among others, NTNC chairman noted the importance of elevating river basin governance, knowledge generation and data sharing capacity enhancement in the HKH, the role of integrated river basin management for sustainable and climate-resilient water management, and the opportunity for regions of the world with shared interests and influences in developing policies, practices and tools that recognize transboundary cooperation and collaboration as both a necessity and an opportunity for improving natural linkages, national interdependencies and regional capacities to combat the looming climate crisis.
[Watch full session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN8yUTAn4_I]
