Project News

The Project for Strengthening Water Management Transfer (SWMT Project) has started to implement the first Staff Training (ST) on August 10, 2014. In the first ST, the main trainers were selected from senior staff of the Central Department of Irrigation Advisory Service (CDIAS) and General Directorate of Irrigation Advisory Service (GDIAS) being in charge of every pilot site, who were trainees of the first Training of Trainers (TOT). They have provided trainings on 14 topics in total on Water Management Transfer (WMT) for local Counterparts (CPs) who will become trainers of the first Training for Water Users' Organizations (WUO Training) in which trainees are members of Branch Canal Water Users' Association (BCWUA) in each pilot site.

In the period from August 10 to September 2, trainings on 11 topics were implemented, including "Participation in Operation and Maintenance (O&M) of Irrigation and Drainage Networks (on August 10)," "Improvement of Environmental Issues (on August 12)" and "Water Delivery and Distribution (on August 14)". Most of the trainees were eagerly participating in every training although they had to travel a long way from home every time. From September 16, JICA expert Eng. Yutaka Ueno has been an instructor for trainings on "Water Measurement," "Geographic Information System (GIS)" and "Project Cycle Management (PCM)."

Most of the CPs who became trainers of the first ST elaborated easily understandable training, for instance, combining their own experiences with knowledge and skills of WMT that they learned in the first TOT as well as utilizing audiovisual materials (video) and group discussion.

At the same time, Dr. Shuichi Matsushima, a short-term expert of JICA was dispatched in order to technically support the ST in the period from August 8 to September 5, following his assignment last year.

In addition to technical advice to the ST, Dr. Matsushima organized a workshop on curriculum development of trainings for the project CPs including staff of the CDIAS, Training Sector for Water Resources and Irrigation (TSWRI) and the GDIAS at TSWRI on September 3 and 4. In this workshop, at first, a method of curriculum development called CUDBAS* was introduced by Dr. Matsushima. After that, the participants formed groups and were engaged in developing a training curriculum for implementing WMT to BCWUA as an exercise. All the participants showed large interest on the newly introduced curriculum development method, CUDBAS, and eagerly worked on the exercise developing the training curriculum with their group members having advice by Dr. Matsushima.

The first ST will be continued till the end of September. We will do our best to support the participants to become good trainers for the coming training for BCWUA members, and also, assist them to utilize what they learned in the training in their daily work.

The first ST.

The first ST.

The first ST.

The first ST.

Workshop on curriculum development of trainings.

Workshop on curriculum development of trainings.