Asian Confluence looks forward to a meaningful collaboration with an Australia based organisation International Centre of Excellence in Water Resources Management (ICE WaRM), recognised globally for leadership and innovation in collaborative approaches to capacity development for water management and sustainable economic development.

Recognising the profound importance of rivers and water in the ecological and civilisational spaces, Asian Confluence identifies water as the central theme of connection, encompassing various focus and thematic areas of work of the organisation, viz. culture, tourism, borders, connectivity, livelihoods, communities and ecology. A recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ICE WaRM and Asian Confluence in January 2019 is a step towards synergising such values and scope of activities on capacity development including water, energy policy and governance issues.

To provide a background history, a consortium of partners including five universities (University of South Australia, Adelaide University, Flinders University, Central Queensland University and Deakin University) together with financial support from the South Australian Government, were awarded Federal Government funding from the Department of Education, Science and Training to establish an International Centre of Excellence in Water Resources Management in December 2004. ICE WaRM has a long-standing partnership agreement with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for the Sustainable Development Investment Portfolio which commenced in 2012. The phase 2 of the program is on-going, until June 2020.

Acknowledging a greater need in regional cooperation around water governance in the context of Eastern South Asia region, Mr. Sabyasachi Dutta, Executove Director, Asian Confluence said “Together, we should bring in cutting edge know-how on water governance with a focus on gender and governance to riverine community leaders in the North East. The bottom up initiative will complement and bolster the other top down initiatives underway and further strengthen Indo-Australia relations at a people-to-people level.”

Collaborations on gender, equity and water management has been primarily focused on, during the discussion at the Asian Confluence headquarters, Shillong, Meghalaya, India.

 deep change in the water reform journey”, said Mr. Darryl Day, Managing Director, ICE WaRM.“We are delighted to work with Asian Confluence, which has shared organisation values and an aligned mission supporting top down and bottom up capacity development and supporting