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