4th Regional Annual Meeting and 7th Strategic Committee Meeting of the Upper Indus Basin Network

Agenda

About the meetings

ICIMOD, as the secretariat for the Upper Indus Basin Network (UIBN), is organising the 4^th Regional UIBN Annual Meeting (RUAM) on 20 December 2023 and the 7^th Regional Strategic Committee (RSC) meeting on 21 December 2023. As per the governance framework of the UIBN, the RUAM meets annually to discuss progress, emerging challenges, and opportunities in the country chapters, whereas the RSC meets biannually to align the strategic direction of the network with changing needs and context.

The key objectives of the RUAM are:

• Strengthen regional cooperation for sustainable management of the UIB
• Disseminate new and relevant research on the UIB
• Share experiences and progress of UIBN Country Chapters
• Explore opportunities for enhancing the effectiveness of UIBN, as well as for the country chapters to contribute to national policies in their respective countries

The key objectives of the RSC meeting are:

• Review UIBN’s functioning, achievements, and lessons learnt from individual country chapters including their respective technical working groups (TWGs)
• Propose and discuss the restructuring and optimisation of the TWGs based on the identified learnings
• Examine the challenges and explore areas for improvement and opportunities for the long-term viability and sustainability of UIBN country chapters
• Outline a strategic direction and guidelines for the UIBN country chapters in the context of ICIMOD 2030 strategy
• Facilitate the transfer of the RSC chair and plan the next RSC meeting and UIBN Annual Meeting

Background

The Upper Indus Basin (UIB) shared by Afghanistan, China, India, and Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change impacts considering the large downstream dependence on the upstream for water resources. The UIBN was established in 2014 and expanded in 2018 to all the riparian countries by key stakeholders from these countries. UIBN is a voluntary and neutral knowledge and research network which aims to foster coordination among the stakeholders in research related to climate, cryosphere, water, hazards and vulnerability, and adaptation. It plays an important role in bringing together representatives of relevant government and non-government organisations, academia and policy makers to promote a shared understanding of regional challenges and opportunities and joint solutions to deal with the effects of climate change on water resources, water-induced hazards, and upstream/downstream linkages. More on UIBN: https://www.icimod.org/initiative/about-uibn/