Project News

The Project for Strengthening Water Management Transfer (SWMT Project) supported the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI) to organize an internal meeting to share information and discuss Water Management Transfer (WMT) and the project's plan. The meeting was held at a hotel in Cairo on November 27, 2013 and was attended by 48 participants who were decision makers of the relevant departments at MWRI and representatives of the Branch Canal Water Users' Association (BCWUA) in each of the three pilot sites.

Since the new interim government was appointed in July, 2013, there have been personnel changes of the staff at MWRI including H.E. the Minister, other executives and the project counterparts in Fayoum. Therefore, this meeting was held to share and discuss the project information and WMT so that the project activities can be implemented smoothly through close cooperation of all the relevant stakeholders.

In the meeting, firstly MWRI explained the effects of WMT and activities of Participatory Water Management (PWM), whereas the roles and the responsibilities of main stakeholders were proposed for every activity which is necessary for WMT. After these presentations, both MWRI staff and BCWUA members actively discussed the main issues of WMT including observance of the planned cropping patters, rotation of irrigation to implement fair water distribution to farmers, the necessity of concrete mechanisms and procedures to enforce the laws and ministerial decrees on WMT. In the end, Eng. Nagwa El Khashab, Head of the Central Department of Irrigation Advisory Service (CDIAS) stated that she would continuously promote WMT with the SWMT Project, while proceeding to authorize new roles and responsibilities for implementing WMT with the relevant departments at MWRI.

In the meeting, Dr. Masayoshi Satoh, Professor Emeritus at Tsukuba University, gave a presentation on irrigation management in Japan. This helped to enhance the participants' understanding of the basic concepts of WMT through his clear explanation about the Japanese experience.

We believe that as result of this meeting the participants could sense the necessity of working together for implementing WMT. Based on the discussion of this meeting, the SWMT Project will continuously support the MWRI to develop its vision and roadmap of WMT in cooperation with the relevant stakeholders. Using this meeting as a stepping stone to accelerate realization of WMT, we will do our best in implementing the project activities.

Opening remarks (From the left, Eng. Nagwa, Eng. Beltagi and Eng. Naito).

Eng. Naito explaining about the SWMT Project.

Dr. Satoh explaining about irrigation management in Japan.

Eng. Beltagi sharing his comments during the discussion.