Water Security Nexus in North Africa: Catalyzing Regional Coordination around Climate Change, Resilience and Migration

The CMI-led study on “Water security nexus in North Africa: catalyzing regional coordination around climate change, resilience, and migration”, funded by FCDO, focuses on understanding the complex nexus relationships across North Africa on water security, aggravated by climate change, and triggering  migration movements, in the current context.

The key characteristics of the study are as follows:  its regional capacity-building element, the preceding regional policy exchange to inform the report, and its catalytic youth engagement in developing new technical approaches to enhance water access and drought monitoring/management. In this vein, a Regional Forum, gathering key regional actors, will be organized to discuss, review, and validate the outcome results of this study, which is to be published in March 2021. 

The Water Security Nexus (WSN) Regional Forum will bring the implementing partners, together with the regional stakeholders that were identified for this study, to cross benefit and create a space for exchanging best practices for drought monitoring, and will foster cross-country multi-stakeholder cooperation on water management issues. This Forum is an essential output, as it links the different study components and actors involved.

Objectives and Description the Event

Objectives

The objective of this multi-stakeholders Forum is to discuss the Water security Nexus study results, by connecting national, and regional stakeholders in North Africa, to encourage cross-regional cooperation and integration between the different actors. The forum will also involve directly concerned but often marginalized groups (youth, women…) and neighboring countries' stakeholders (Egypt and Libya) in the exchange of the best practices in drought monitoring, which will help to draw regional policy recommendations to support decision making. 

In the context of this Forum, the different outcomes produced by the CMI and its key partners (IWMI,  CIHEAM and CEWAS) will contribute to understand the climate change prospects in Tunisia and Morocco (focusing on the water accounting, the CDI review, and the production of new climate datasets) as well as the complexity of water and migration nexus through a tailored framework, presenting case studies from the targeted countries (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia). The outcomes of the Forum will help shape the final CMI flagship report on the Water Security Nexus and strengthen its recommendations component, emphasizing the importance of regional cooperation in drawing concrete policy recommendations, and supporting decision making for water and human security. 

The Regional Forum 

It will be a hybrid event gathering about 55-60 participants in Marseille, France 14-15 March 2022, while additional participants will be connected remotely to the workshop. This format will allow for a greater dissemination of the results of the study. The agenda of the event will be influenced by the outcomes of the virtual meeting's discussions. 

Structure of the Forum

The Forum will consist of a two-day event with the participation of stakeholders from the studied countries. The following components will be presented during the event: 

• The new climate change data and the CDI work developed for Morocco and Tunisia case studies.

• The water and migration nexus analytical framework and its application at the national (case study) scale for Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, in order to better understand the intersections of climate, socio-economic development, and migration.
• The policy implications of the overall study results 
• The youth cross-cutting theme: entrepreneurial program on Water and Climate Change