Twelve centres of excellence from across the Asia-Pacific region have launched a network to share solutions for improving water management to tackle the region’s many pressing water challenges. The network, known as “KnowledgeHubs,” is an initiative of the Asia-Pacific Water Forum, which was established in 2006 with support from Japan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to promote leadership and boost investment in the water sector. KnowledgeHubs is supported by ADB, Singapore’s national water agency PUB, UNESCO, and the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education.

Candidate Hubs for Sanitation and for Water Supply for Rural Areas and Small Towns, still need to be identified. The 12 founding members and their topics are:

• Urban Water Management: PUB WaterHub - Singapore
• Disaster Risk Reduction and Flood Management - ICHARM - Japan
• Water and Climate Change Adaptation in Southeast Asia: NAHRIM - Malaysia
• River Basin Organizations and Management: CRBOM - Indonesia
• Water Quality Management in River Basins: K-water - Republic of Korea
• Decision Support Systems for River Basin Management (Hydroinformatics): CHIRB - China
• Water Governance: Institute of Water Policy (IWP), LKY School of Public Policy - Singapore
• Irrigation Service Reform: IWMI - Sri Lanka
• Integrated Water Resources Management in Central Asia: Central Asia IWRM Resource Center - Uzbekistan
• Integrated Water Resources Management in the Pacific: Pacific IWRM Resource Centre - Fiji Islands
• Erosion and Sedimentation in River Basins: IRTCES - CHINA
• Healthy Rivers and Aquatic Ecosystems: IWC - Australia

Source: ADB, 26 Jun 2008

Tags: east asia & pacific, information and communication, knowledge management, sanitation, south asia, water supply