The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has identified six priority areas to drive the operationalisation of its Global Strategy in water management research in West and Central Africa. These priorities are building resilient agri-food systems against climate change, reducing risks from droughts, floods, and compounding systems water risks, and enabling circular water and food economy innovations. The rest are leveraging water for resilience in fragile and conflict-affected settings, strengthening gender equity in water resources utilization and management, and supporting water infrastructure and allocation decisions. Dr Olufunke Cofie, IWMI West Africa Regional Representative, told the Ghana News Agency that the six priorities were crucial and would influence its global strategy. Dr Cofie was speaking in an interview during a Regional Stakeholder Consultation on IWMI's Strategic Priorities on Transforming Water Systems for a Sustainable Future in West and Central Africa in Accra. The event was to operationalise IWMI's global strategy through the development of a regional strategy roadmap, codesign and develop mechanism for Research for Development, jointly identify and pursue resource mobilisation opportunities and strengthen networks and future. She said it was important to have a strategy to guide directions of water management to ensure stakeholders remain focused on their operations. Dr Cofie said, 'if strategies are not in place, they will not be able to define their priorities and these Global Strategy was based on Regional Dialogues.' She said it was to draw an action plan on how they would operationalize the strategy through clearly defined priorities that they agreed upon. Dr Mark Smith, the Director-General of IWMI, said the strategy had been developed for operationalisation for the next seven years to help address water management challenges. He said it was to help IWMI's partners and the countries they work in to become water-secured and manage water better. The Director-Gener al said the strategy was to address water risk or drought, flood, and women inequality. He said, 'without effective water management, we can easily lose the gains made regarding growth and development.' Source: Ghana News Agency