IHP@50 – 23rd Meeting of the IHP Regional Steering Committee for Southeast Asia and the Pacific: Celebration of 50 years of IHP/IHD (19-20 October 2015)

With the generous support from Japan Funds in Trusts, Indonesia Funds in Trust and Kyoto University, the 23rd IHP-Regional Steering Committee for Southeast Asia and the Pacific took place from 19 to 20 October 2015 in Medan, Indonesia.

Thirteen member states (Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand and Vietnam) sent their country report along with an observer country Pakistan and three UNESCO category-2 centres APCE, HTC-KL and ICHARM. The reports covered activities related to IHP that took place in each country respectively. This meeting was the occasion to welcome to the first time participation of Brunei Darussalam as an observer. Also the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC), a WMO centre based in Koblenz participated for the second time in this IHP network as observer and made an appeal for hydrometeorological data update and sharing from the region in particular because IHP RSC SEAP has developed and accumulated over the years the Water Archive and the Catalogue of Rivers. It was proposed to establish a Memorandum of Understanding between GRDC and IHP-RSC-SEAP.

On 20 October 2015, a special commemoration for the 50 years of International Hydrological Programme/International Hydrology Decade took place to give the UNESCO IHP RSC SEAP awards to 10 individuals in the region which contributed outstandingly to IHP over the years. The awardees were: Mr Trevor Daniell from Mr Tony Falkland from Australia, Mr Davaa Gombo from Mongolia, Mr Soontak Lee from Republic of Korea, Mr Leonardo Quesada Liongson from the Philippines, Mr Hidayat Pawitan from Indonesia, Mr Kaoru Takara and Mr Kuniyoshi Takeuchi from Japan, Mr Thuc Tran from Vietnam and Ms Xiao Yuan Zhu from China. Also each IHP National committee members of IHP-RSC received a special appreciation for their support and contribution to IHP in the region.

The 50 years of IHP/IHD was also the occasion to launch a booklet compiling success stories contributed from IHP RSC members, observers and category 2 centres in the region: “Celebrating 50 years of Water Leadership in Asian and the Pacific – Success stories from the field“.

The publication as well as agenda, country reports and presentations are available for download at here.