１６８：イエメンのIWRM動向

GTZの活躍が目立つが今回はイエメンからの報告である。英語の間違いが多く添削してからのアップロードである。イエメンはサウジや日本と同じで世界のTOEFL最低点の常連である。

Facing Yemen’s water challenge through human capacity

Nadia Al-Sakkaf

According to estimates by the Joint Monitoring Program of the WHO and UNICEF, 900 million people worldwide will not have reliable access to safe drinking water by 2015 and twice that number will lack adequate sanitation. These figures, moreover, are optimistic in so far as they assume that the infrastructure in place today will remain fully operational in the long term. However, that is not to be taken for granted.

Ninety percent of the Yemeni population lives in the western part of the country where water is a problem. Every year Yemenis consume 2.8 billion cubic meters of water while renewed water in the underground basins does not exceed 2.1 billion annually.

Renewable water comes dominantly from rain. There is no large scale use of desalination technologies even though Yemen as a country has the largest coastal line in the region of more than 2,000 kilometers long.

Statistics indicate that underground water in the western side of the country will be exhausted in less than forty years. In some cities such as in Sana’a, the threat of drought is even closer. Current estimates indicate that 10 to 15 years from now, and currently in some places in Sana‘a governorate, people have to dig as deep as 1000 meters underground before water is found. This can be compared to the early 1970s, when water was found only 40 meters deep throughout the governorate.

At the Yemeni German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), water is a priority. One of the international partners for the GTZ in Yemen is Inwent, a non-profit organization with worldwide operations dedicated to human resource development, advanced training and dialogue. Inwent‘s capacity building programs are directed at experts and executives from politics, administration, the business community and civil society.

In the Middle East, water is Inwent’s central focal point. It also concentrates on professional training, the advancement of technology and sustainable corporate management. Due to its geographical proximity, Europe also has a vital interest in stabilizing the Mediterranean and the Middle East, resolving present conflicts in the area and improving economic and social reforms throughout the region. Here in Yemen, Inwent is also involved in initiating dialogue and encouraging the formation of networks among local actors.

Each year, Inwent sponsors several Yemeni water researchers, experts and decision makers for a one year long study in Germany. Their education focuses on integrated water resource management as well as studies in the German language and German law.

An integrated water resource management program has been created in the region and technologies have been developed for the supply of drinking water and control of waste management to suit the region’s particular needs. Institutional, legal and regulative framework conditions have been created to promote reforms in this region. The follow-up program, “Strategic Human Resources Development and Regional Dialogue in the Water Sector of the MENA Region“is ensuring the continued success of this program. Before their travel to Germany, the five Yemeni candidates from Sana’a, Amran, Taiz and Hadramout took intensive German language courses for two months in Yemen before continuing to study the language in Germany for four more months. Then they joined a program on leadership skills in integrated water resource management at the Inwent organization.

By the time they return to Yemen holding a certification of long term training, they should have acquired some skills that will enable them to provide solutions for Yemen’s water problem.

“The training included a lot of personal skills such as leadership, moderating meetings and powers of persuasion in addition to learning the German experience in managing water resources,” said engineer Ibrahim Al-Zubairy at the National Water Resources Authority, Sana'a Branch.

He added that he benefitted from the course, particularly regarding underground water feeding and rainwater monitoring systems which he feels he could be able to use in his work at the Sana'a Basin Water Management Project. However, having to study about water resource management in German after only six months of language courses was very difficult and rather ambitious.

Inwent has developed a range of programs designed to pass on information about water policy, integrated water resource management, sanitary environmental engineering and rural water use. With its “Reform of the Water Sector in the MENA Region” program, Inwent has been active for years in systematically providing experts and executives with the skills they need to develop more efficient solutions. In Germany, the training is actually divided into four segments. The first segment is general language education for two months followed by two months of water related technical terminology. Then follows three months of theoretical education and field visits to learn about German expertise in various fields of water resource management such as desalination stations, network pipelines and water research authorities followed by a three month internship with a company in a specialization close to the intern‘s work in his/her home country.

“The language part was not a problem and I could say that we eventually did manage to master German to the extent of benefitting from the course,” said engineer Abdulkhaleq Alwan of the National Water Resources Authority, Amran Unit. “This learning came at the expense of English however, and I am afraid that German as a language is not used very much in Yemen compared to English. It would have been more beneficial had the course been in English, but the sponsors explained that since it is funded by the German government the education in German language is an obligation,”

He also insisted that for the program to be more beneficial, the organizers in Inwent could continue communication with the authorities and supervisors of the candidates in their home countries. “The experience changed us, and we learned a lot. But coming back we realized that it would be very difficult to create change here in Yemen. So we suggested that Inwent provides a short term training course for our managers to ensure their support for us and our new ideas when we come back.”

Alwan’s transfer project was in merging traditional concepts with the water project’s contracts in a way that ensures community participation and commitments to maintain these projects while changing their water related lifestyle to assist preservation of water resources.

Although his project did not meet the welcome he had hoped for, especially since the water authority’s annual plans had already been finalized, he found hope in the GTZ project in Amran which is likely to include this new concept in the organization’s interventions in the governorate. Environmental protection is another focal point of international cooperation with North Africa and the Middle East. Strong institutions that can and do take political action to support good governance are needed to halt the destruction of the environment and develop a sustainable resource protection strategy.

The five Yemenis joined a water specialist group whose 14 members are from Syria, Tunisia, Egypt and Germany at a four day leadership training workshop organized for the first time in Yemen.

“After every training event, the graduates meet for a short capacity building session on leadership to discuss the progress of the transfer projects. Every time it is either in Germany or another country and it had never been organized in Yemen until now,” said Mohammed Bourji, Director General of ASB for environmental services, the organization responsible for organizing the workshop.

“The aim of the training is to implement learned IWRM skills in order to improve the water situation in the partner countries,” added Bourji.

This workshop took place after the whole group had six months of what is called ‘the transfer of skills‘process. The intention is that the candidates will return with new ideas and projects to be included in their work once they are in their home countries and will assist in developing the various institutions‘capacities towards dealing with water challenges.

“Six months is not enough time to be able to implement anything concrete, especially considering the paperwork we have to do and the various procedures before getting anything approved. We don’t even have adequate furniture at the basin project,” commented Al-Zubairy.

Inwent’s most important partner countries from North Africa and the Middle East are Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen and Syria. The main focal points of international cooperation with North Africa and the Middle East, in addition to administrative reforms, are sustainable economic development, water policy and the effects of climate change that can be counteracted by cooperative efforts to protect the environment and revamp the energy policy.