Over the last six months, the Secretariat has redoubled efforts to enhance the working environment by modernising facilities to support work and general staff welfare. This endeavour began with the timely refurbishment of the office premises and sanitation facilities. It included painting of offices and corridors, repair of washrooms and sewage systems, repair of water pipes, furnishing of the main meeting room, Victoria Hall and a general facelift of the Information Centre, Sudd Hall and computer meeting rooms. The general safety and security were enhanced by the installation of solar lights for better visibility around the office compound at night. Fencing was extended to cover the full compound and limit unauthorised access to the Nile-SEC compound. Following the handover of the NBI Secretariat land title by the Government of Uganda in November 2021, soon after a complete land demarcation and opening up of the land boundaries, an ambitious maintenance and beautification of the Nile-SEC land and compound has been undertaken by planting trees and flowers. Some of the tree planting was done during the hosting of key events at the secretariat such as the visit by the Ambassadors and High Commissioners of Nile Basin Member States. As part of the improvement of facilities and institutional capacity strengthening, new office chairs and cabinets were procured to replace those that were worn out and two new vehicles have been acquired and are due to be delivered soon. The foregoing acquisitions of office equipment was done with timely support from the World Bank and GIZ/EU. Further negotiations are under way with other development partners to support the modernisation of the Nile-SEC working facilities. In the next quarter, the Secretariat is hopeful to acquire additional ICT equipment to support staff day-to-day activities and backup systems in the office. In addition, the hosting agreement of Global Water Partnership East Africa (GWPEA) by Nile-SEC was renewed for a further three years. GWPEA is now relocating all its activities to Nile-SEC in Uganda including two of its projects that were previously coordinated from South Africa. Further to that, Nile-SEC has signed a grant agreement with Global Water Partnership (GWP)to host a new project for GWPEA called GCF Readiness and Preparatory Support Programme. The 18-month project, to be implemented in Somalia, is supported by the Global Climate Fund and will be under the Supervision of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). The GCF Readiness project grant amounts to USD 671,556. Martin D. Mutua,
Head of Corporate Services
Nile-SEC, ENTEBBE