The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) organized the first Upper Indus Basin (UIB) Strategic Committee Meeting in Lahore on 11 March 2015. This meeting, which was a sequel to the 21 November 2015 meeting of the UIB Network, brought together members of the national collaborating partners, i.e., WAPDA, Pak Met Department, and WWF-Pakistan. During the meeting, the participants discussed the future strategy of the UIB Network and its working groups, and outlined both the broad and specific activities of the UIB.

Khalid Mohtadullah, who chaired the meeting, said the strategic committee has an important role in defining a course of action for the UIB based on the partners’ commitments. The UIB working groups were urged to undertake a detailed survey for documenting local knowledge on glaciers, climate change, etc. WAPDA took up the responsibility of drafting a working paper on data sharing policy for Pakistan.  The meeting participants proposed developing a mechanism to address the communication gap between working groups and to develop a joint proposal assigning each group with a pilot task aimed at achieving the programme goal. Dr Ghulam Rasul, Chief Meteorologist at the Pak Met Department, voluntarily accepted this responsibility on behalf of his organization.

The UIB network reviewed all six big questions as proposed by ICIMOD. These were approved with slight modifications, as suggested during the discussions. The committee members expressed their appreciation for Dr Arun B. Shrestha’s role in drafting the background paper and his support to the UIB. In the end, Dr A. W. Jasra thanked all the participants of the meeting on behalf of ICIMOD.

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