Project News

The Project for Strengthening Water Management Transfer (SWMT Project) had the second JSC on February 11, 2014. From Egyptian side, Eng. Mohamed Beltagi, Head of Irrigation Department (ID) and representatives of the other relevant sectors and departments (e.g. Central Department of Irrigation Advisory Service (CDIAS), Irrigation Sector (IS), Irrigation Improvement Sector (IIS), Planning Sector (PS), Training Sector of Water Resources and Irrigation (TSWRI) in Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI) and Agricultural Extension Department in Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MALR)) participated, while Eng. Kazuya Masuda, First Secretary attended from Japan Embassy and representatives of the JICA Egypt Office attended as well.

After Eng. Beltagi and Eng. Masuda had their opening remarks, Eng. Kunihiko Naito, Chief Advisor of the SWMT Project explained about the progress of the project activities since the first JSC on June, 9, 2013. In his presentation, Eng. Naito mentioned that the project activities including the field activities in the pilot sites and trainings, have recently come to be implemented in full scale due to efforts by the project staff, although they have been a bit delayed because the security situation had deteriorated last year. After his presentation, Eng. Nagwa El-Khashab, Head of the CDIAS, gave a report about the meeting which was held to exchange views on Water Management Transfer (WMT) for decision makers of the relevant departments in the MWRI and representatives of the Branch Canal Water Users' Association (BCWUA) in each of the three pilot sites on November, 27, 2013 (Note: For details on the meeting, please refer to the Project News on December 15, 2013.). Eng. Nagwa explained the general Roles and Responsibilities (R&R) of main stakeholders in WMT as a main outcome of the meeting and R&R on Joint Repair Work (JRW) in the pilot sites. Following her presentation, Eng. Ahmed Abdel Monsif of the CDIAS reported the first Training of Trainers (TOT) which has been on-going since February 10 (Note: For details on TOT, please refer to the Project News on December 15, 2013.), while Eng. Naito explained about the schedule of the project activities in the coming months.

Upon these presentations, there were several comments regarding the importance of cooperation between the MWRI and the MALR. For example, Eng. Beltagi said: "It is important for the MWRI to have cooperation with the MALR in implementing relevant cropping patterns against the limited supply of water." Dr. Ashraf El Ghanam, Head of Agriculture Extension Department added: "It is important to support BCWUAs by collaboration between the MWRI and the MALR." Other comments touched on cooperation among different departments and sectors of the MWRI , as Eng. Beltagi stated: "Since each department has its different vision about the BCWUA, we need to unify them as one."

Finally, Eng. Beltagi said that he hopes that each stakeholder can complete his tasks on JRW in the pilot sites in the agreed schedule and by that the meeting was concluded.

From now on, we will continuously make efforts to establish a good implementation structure on WMT with the other stakeholders through implementation of the project activities including the JRW and water measurement activities in the pilot sites and the training activities.

Eng. Naito explaining the progress of the project activities.

Participants of the second JSC