1st Stakeholder meeting in Egypt
- Sep 27, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 28, 2022
This first Stakeholder meeting of WATDEV project was successfully held in Cairo on September 14th-15th, 2022. The meeting allowed a debate among public authorities, associations, and private sector involved in the development of water management in agriculture in Belbies district.
Main goals of the meeting were to explore and enhance involvement of the relevant local stakeholders and engaging them into a multi-level dialogue on major issues linked to water and soil management in the agricultural sector in Egypt. The two-day meeting was organized by Heliopolis University and the international Organization ASARECA with the support of CIHEAM Bari and coordinated by AICS Cairo.
Prof. Wael Khairy of Heliopolis University and the Director of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation in Cairo (AICS Cairo), Martino Melli, opened the workshop and welcomed all participants.
As technical and scientific leader of WATDEV project, CIHEAM Bari illustrated the overall objectives of the meeting and its expected outcomes, and presented WATDEV common research phases and methodology.
The whole meeting and the debate with local representatives were co-chaired by Prof. Sherif Mohammady (Heliopolis University) and Moses Odeke (ASARECA).
The collection of best management practices in Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Kenya was presented by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) as a first important step toward the future training and modelling phases planned within the project.
Representatives from local communities, Zagazig University, Heliopolis University -Rural Development Centre, the National Water Research Centre (Egypt), Ministry of Agriculture of Egypt, water users’ organization, local association of producers and farmers, SEKEM for Land Reclamation, and landowners took part to the fruitful discussion. They shared their current practices and needs on water management while expressing their willingness to innovate their own activity to improve water use efficiency, value chains sustainability, and natural resources use and management.
The Water Research Center of the University of Khartoum (Sudan) also attended the meeting as observer of the methodologies applied in Egypt and to share their experiences with local representatives.
On September 15th the participants had the pleasure to visit the Campus of Heliopolis University and SEKEM study area located in Belbies district.
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