setting the scene: introducing the workshop objectives and its expected results, pasquale steduto
TRANSCRIPT
Setting the Scene Introducing the Workshop Objectives
and its Expected Results
Pasquale Steduto
Deputy Director FAO Office
Near East and North Africa
Cairo, Egypt
Cairo - Egypt, 27-29 October 2015
The WSI - Operationalizing the
Regional Collaborative Platform
Water Consumption Water Productivity Drought Management
The WSI Background
The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity in Near
East and North Africa (WSI) has been
established by FAO to provide a focused
support to its member countries in coping with
one of their most striking challenges: the pursuit
of food and water security for sustainable
development, under an unprecedented severe
escalation of water scarcity
The first move of the WSI has been to
engage in a vast dialogue through the
Region to identify ‘gaps’ and
finding critical ‘solutions’
The result of this dialogue has been
The Regional Collaborative Strategy
The spectrum of interventions addresses:
• evidence-based policy-decisions
• sound governance and institutions
• cost-effective water investments
• best management practices.
The Partnership
ACSAD - Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands
AOAD - Arab Organization for Agricultural Development
AWC - Arab Water Council
CEDARE - Center for Environ. and Develop. for the Arab Region and Europe
CIHEAM - International Center for Advanced Mediterranean Agric. Studies
DRC - Desert Research Center
DWFI - Daugherty Water for Food Institute
GIZ - German Cooperation Agency
ICARDA - International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Area
ICBA - International Center for Biosaline Agriculture
IWMI - International Water Management Institute
LAS - League of Arab States
NWRC-Egypt - National Water Research Center
UNESCO - UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNESCWA - UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
WB - World Bank
WFP - World Food Program
The Regional Collaborative Platform represents the
mechanism to implement the strategy
Regional Collaborative Platform
Non web-based outreach
Web-based Knowledge Platform
What’s New in this platform?
• Focus
• Selective in Problems to address and solution oriented
• Cutting edge data, information and knowledge
• Strong stakeholders engagement
• Significant magnitude of spatial and temporal scales
• Beyond Internet outreach
The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity
Selected Issues/Themes •Groundwater
•Water Accounting & Irrigation Modernization
•Water Efficiency, Water Productivity and Water
Saving in Agriculture
•Climate Change and Drought
• Scoping documents
• Good practices
• Policy briefs
• Selected links to other sites
• Stakeholders involvement
•Governance
The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity
Data, Graphs and Maps
•Monitoring Key Agricultural Water Parameters
• Link to selected sites (e.g., AQUASTAT, …)
ET
Water Productivity
Drought indicators & indices
Groundwater
The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity
•Policy/stakeholders fora
•Knowledge advance/sharing workshops
•Capacity development
The non web-based component
(beyond Internet)
Farmers Field School
Technical tours and workshops
On-the-job training
………
The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity
Governance
Regional Collaborative Platform
Non web-based outreach
Web-based Knowledge Platform
Management Unit
Partnership Committee
(Technical guidance)
High-Level Steering
Committee (Strategic guidance)
The Workshop
Operationalizing the Regional Collaborative Platform
to address ‘water consumption’, ‘water productivity’
and ‘drought management’ in Agriculture
Peculiarities
• Having a strong Remote Sensing component
• Oriented towards the sustainability of water resources
management
• Looking at country capacity enhancement
• Aiming at relevant magnitudes of spatial scales
• Setting the premises for a transformational change
Rationale
• We need to develop strategic planning of water resources
• Allocation quota, abstraction limits and withdrawal regulations
are fundamental dimensions of water resources management
• How can we implement all of the above without having a
proper water accounting system? Water consumption is
the weak variable of the water accounting equation
• Once allocation/abstraction/withdrawal have been defined,
we need to ensure that the benefits of water use are maximized
• We need to know how much is our water productivity
1.
2.
Day 1
Day 2
• Water supply varies over time, with climate being a major
control factor. The alarming trend is that the NENA Region is
experiencing more frequent, intense and long droughts
• Drought monitoring and early warning systems needs to be
effective and adequate to sectors/sub-sectors under threat
• But vulnerability and risks assessments are required to calibrate
major response actions
3.
• Preparedness is key to minimize drought impact
• All of the above is part of the Drought Management domain
Day 3
Objectives/Expected Results
• Country-level work plan towards an enhanced capacity in
‘water accounting/water consumption’, ‘water productivity’
and ‘drought management’ (based on Remote Sensing metrics)
• Standardized methodologies, approaches and protocols to
address ‘water consumption’, ‘water productivity’ and
‘drought management’ as common basis among Countries
Discussion sessions
Setting major objectives (reference to SDGs as well)
Analyzing needs for capacity enhancement
Identifying systems to monitor (national/sub-national)
Establishing multi-disciplinary and partnership teams
Exploring opportunities for resources to support the work plan
Break-out sessions/groups
Results Pathway
State-of-the-art RS Products
and Service provided by key
Partners (utility basket)
Country present capacity
(actual status)
Country enhanced capacity
(upgraded status)
Regional Collaborative Platform
http://neareast.fao.org
Thank You