The Technical Working Group (WG) and Strategic Committee Meetings of Upper Indus Basin (UIB) Network met 5 August 2016 at the Marriott Hotel, Islamabad, Pakistan. The meeting was organised by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) to review progress of six technical working groups, discuss funding proposals, TORs of WG-leads, the expansion of the UIB Network, and inclusion of new working group with a way forward. Khalid Mohtadullah, Chairperson UIB Network, chaired the meeting of 27 participants.

During the morning session, the group leads and co-leads of the six technical working groups presented their progress. Nisar A Memon, Chairman, Water Environment Forum (WEF), invited the UIB Network to participate in the International Conference on Climate Change to be organised in Pakistan in October 2016.

During the discussion, it was decided all members would provide inputs on WG-lead ToRs; new members, particularly academia, would be invited; visibility of UIB Network would be enhanced; German and Italian research publications on UIB would be translated into English; an integrated funding proposal would be developed; and the WG-6 would be renamed.

In the afternoon, a strategic committee meeting was held to discuss expanding the UIB Network to all four countries including Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and China. The expansion would include Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in WGs. and would provide small grants for each WG to engage students in research activities and partially merge the proposed new WG on ‘Air Pollution and Black Carbon’ into WG-2 and WG-3. The next meeting will take place in Islamabad February 2017.