Facilitated twinning exercises and multi-day/week interactions among GEF IW projects and learning exchange partners address specific, pragmatic IW management challenges. Whether multi-project workshops or single-project study tours, exchanges promote peer learning and South-to-South cooperation, and often produce Experience Notes or other outputs that are of value to other IW projects.

Project Twinning Exchange Missions

IW:LEARN has a budget in place to support twinning exchanges in between GEF IW projects. The activity brings together project managers, scientists and technical experts, non-governmental organization leaders, and policy makers for exchanges of project experiences and lessons learned during multi-day or week “learning missions.” The exchanges enable participating institutions to share experience and learn from each other in practical ways through collaborative face-to-face interactions over two to six week periods. Although a majority of twinnings are done on the basis of pre-determined capacity building needs, there is additional funding to support previously unforeseen interactions.  Projects are therefore encouraged to submit their proposals.  In order to do so, projects are to fill out a GEF IW:LEARN Learning Exchange Proposal and Identification Form. Upon completion of the twinning, participants are asked to fill out an Inter-Project Stakeholder Exchange Mission Report & Evaluation to reflect on the outcomes, impact and follow up actions as a result of the learning exchange.

• Objectives include:
• • Exchanging project experience and expertise at the operational level between projects with similar goals, objectives and activities;
  • Mutually increasing capacity for more effective protection of shared resources and sustainable management of transboundary water systems;
  • Documenting and disseminating recommendations and lessons gleaned from the exchanges across participating GEF IW projects.

See Twinning section