Project News

The Project for Strengthening Water Management Transfer (SWMT Project) implemented a Training Course on Participatory Water Management in Japan from May 29 to June 14, 2015.

The main purposes of the training were to provide the participants with a chance to directly visit relevant organizations such as Land Improvement Districts (LIDs), obtain the know-how of planning and implementing activities of Water Management Transfer (WMT) and think about how the relevant stakeholders should cooperate each other to achieve the WMT in Egypt.

After having orientation of the training at the JICA, the participants visited the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and had lectures about Japanese agricultural system and LIDs.

On June 3, they moved to Togane City in Chiba Prefecture to visit the Ryoso LID and had lectures about the Roles, Financial situations and Operation and Maintenance (O&M) of water facilities. On June 4, the participants actually visited main water facilities ranging from the intake in the upstream area of Tone River to the tail-end and learned about O&M of each facility.

On June 5, the participants visited JA Green Wave Chosei, where they met and exchanged information with representatives of the Producers' Association of Tomatoes, and inspected their automated system for selection and shipment of tomatoes. Participants were very interested in establishment of the association and active agricultural activities by farmers, especially cultivation of tomatoes by advanced hydroponic culture.

In the next week, the participants moved to Toyohashi City in Aichi Prefecture and visited Department of Toyo River System under Japan Water Agency. They had lectures about Integrated Water Management (Structures of water distribution and management) in Toyo River System and visited major water facilities including the main canal running at the middle of mountains, Manba Reservoir which is one of the largest reservoirs in the world whose bottoms are made of rubber and other facilities for branch and smaller canals managed by the LID. We believe it was very useful for the participants to visit the Toyo River System so that they can have a concrete vision to plan and implement the WMT in Egypt.

Thereafter, the participants moved to Kikugawa City in Shizuoka Prefecture and visited West Kanto Region Land Improvement Planning and Management Office of

Kanto Regional Agricultural Administration Office under the MAFF, where Mr. Yutaka Ueno, a former expert of SWMT Project, works as the Head of the Planning Division. After having lectures about structure and coordination of water distribution in wide-ranged areas as well as about participatory planning on land improvement project by farmers, they visited a farm of potatoes and a place to select them at the JA Topia Hamamatsu to observe a process of harvest, selection and sales of potatoes. Additionally, they visited a Center to pack gerbera and a Farmers' Market to learn about how to add values to agricultural products in Mikatagahara. In particular, the participants looked impressed by people who were seriously concentrating on selecting potatoes.

After returning to Tokyo, the participants drafted and presented their training reports to JICA Headquarters, and participated in the evaluation and closing ceremony of the training there.

Although they had a tight training schedule, they seemed to be very satisfied with the contents of the training since they excitedly explained to us that they could visit many places and learn about many things on Participatory Water Management in Japan.

Although the Project will have the busiest time towards the end in March, 2016, we will do our best to make it successful by making full use of what we learned in this training.

Finally, we cordially thank all for their kind support to the training.

Training at MAFF

Training at Ryoso LID

Visit at the Producer’s Association of Tomatoes in JA Green Wave Chosei

Training at Department of Toyo River System

Training at West Kanto Region Land Improvement Planning and Management Office of Kanto Regional Agricultural Administration Office

Visit at Farmers' market in Mikatagahara

Meeting on evaluation of the training at the JICA

Closing ceremony at the JICA