Project News

From February to March, 2014, the Project for Strengthening Water Management Transfer (SWMT Project) implemented the PCM workshops for stakeholders in the three pilot sites as follows: February 4~5: Shubra Baloola (Middle Delta), February 17~18 & 24~25: Bisintaway (West Delta) and March 3~4: Ebheet (Fayoum) . For Bisintaway, two separate workshops were held because of the large number of members in the Branch Canal Water Users' Association (BCWUA)).

In each workshop, there were 30 to 50 participants including representatives of the BCWUA, staff of General Directorate of Irrigation Advisory Service (GDIAS) being in charge of branch canal in every pilot site, representatives of local government in charge of environment and agricultural extension, staff of local unit, etc. (Note: The local unit corresponds to a municipality.). At the beginning of the workshop, the Project explained recommendations on the field activities related to Water Management Transfer (WMT). The explanation included the necessity of water measurement activities and capacity building of the BCWUA, based on basic field surveys from November 2013 to January 2014. After the concept and methods of the PCM were explained, the participants had group work to discuss and analyze their problems and objectives on water distribution in the branch canal, maintenance of the water facilities and environmental issues and to finally make their action plan, referring to the map of the branch canal which the project developed by using the Geographic Information System (GIS).

In each group work, it was impressive to see staff of the Central Department of Irrigation Advisory Service (CDIAS), Training Sector for Water Resources and Irrigation (TSWRI) and GDIAS playing active and important roles in facilitating every discussion and task by making full use of their experience and knowledge on PCM workshop that they gained in the Water Management Improvement Project from 2000 to 2007 and the Water Management Improvement Project II from 2008 to 2012.

PCM Workshop for Shubra Baloola

PCM Workshop for Shubra Baloola

PCM Workshop for Shubra Baloola

PCM Workshop for Shubra Baloola

In each workshop, time passed much faster than expected. Especially during the group work since all the participants regardless of their ages and sexes, actively participated in discussions and work at all times. Each group representative looked happy and satisfied with the outcomes of their group's work when she or he gave the final presentations.

In order to tackle water and other issues that were identified and shared among all in this workshop properly, we will not only collect necessary information on WMT, but also implement construction of irrigation facilities by a participatory approach called Joint Repair Work (JRW) and environmental campaigns in the cropping period of the summer, so that we can discuss and find concrete solutions based on the collected data and field experiences in the next workshop.

PCM Workshop for Bisintaway

PCM Workshop for Bisintaway

PCM Workshop for Ebheet

PCM Workshop for Ebheet