Improving Local Water Governance and the Access of the Poor to Water: Experiences from Egypt, Jordan and Palestine

Sunday 17 August
Evening Side Event

Convenor: EMPOWERS Thematic Group (ETG), IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, CARE USA, CARE Middle East and Eastern Europe Regional Management Unit (MERMU), Inter-Islamic Network for Water Resources Development and Management (INWRDAM), The World Conservation Union (IUCN), Development Research and Technological Planning Center (DRTPC), Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), The Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE) and Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG)

17:15-19:00          Room K24

Event Summary and Conclusions

The side event launched the EMPOWERS guidelines for improved local water governance. The guidelines are based on work in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine that was carried out in the framework of an EU funded MEDA project. The side event started with showing a documentary film, “Nor Any Drop to Drink” to introduce the problems with water scarcity and water governance in the Middle East. Then the guidelines were presented as a possible way to tackle the problems with water governance. The focus was on practical tools for municipal planners and engineers such as the RIDA (Resources, Infrastructure, Development and Access) tool and scenario building. A story was told about the experiences of a municipal planner in a governorate in Jordan who had been working with the tools. The story is part of a book with some 20 personal accounts of working in the area of water governance in the Middle East. The discussion of the 60 participants in this side event concentrated on the sustainability of the EMPOWERS guidelines – what will happen with them after the end of the 4 year EMPOWERS project – and on the possibility to scale up the tools – from a single project village to entire distracts and countries. At the end of the side event participants were given a set of EMPOWERS books (in English and Arabic), the guidelines and the story book included. All EMPOWERS outputs can be downloaded from www.empowers.info

Presentation from the event

What is the EMPOWERS approach?