Nearly 60 participants from Italy, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Netherlands and Finland attended the Multi-actor Regional Meeting of the project “WATDEV – Climate Smart WATer Management and Sustainable DEVelopment for Food and Agriculture in East Africa”, on 8 and 9 March 2023, in Nairobi. The European Commission-DG INTPA project officer, Etienne Coyette, joined the event remotely from Brussels to welcome the participants and underline how relevant WATDEV is for the policies and objectives set by the European Union’s DeSIRA Programme, which aims to address and mitigate the problems caused by climate change in East Africa and Egypt, by boosting research and innovation in water and soil management. The EU delegation in Nairobi was represented by Stephen Wathome, who attended and contributed to the discussion at both meetings. The working sessions were introduced by Martino Melli, Director of AICS Cairo, the project’s Executive Agency. CIHEAM Bari, scientific lead partner of the project consortium, ensured the scientific coordination of the participatory processes throughout the meeting.
High-level representatives of Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, project partners and Stakeholder Forum members shared and took stock of the outcomes of local meetings held in the previous months. Stakeholder Forum members and project partners were then divided into working groups and selected best management practices from the ones previously identified to address specific needs for sustainable and efficient water use in agriculture and resilient agro-ecosystems, in the four target African countries. They also identified the implementation sites for the selected practices and the categories of beneficiaries of future awareness-raising and training activities. The WATDEV project Stakeholder Forum is composed of twenty representatives of leading universities and research institutes, national and local public authorities, and value chain extension services from the four WATDEV African countries.
The Multi-actor Regional Meeting, held on 8 March, was hosted by KALRO (Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation) and the first day’s discussion was facilitated by ASARECA (Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa).
On 9 March, the first Annual Partnership meeting marked an important milestone for the project partners, who discussed and reviewed the activity plan progress, sharing issues and deadlines for technical, administrative, financial and communication management. Chaired by Claudio Bogliotti from CIHEAM Bari, the meeting allowed the partners to outline the work plan for the second year, in particular the timeline for capacity building activities in the selected sites and feasibility studies with local stakeholders that will provide data for the project modelling phases.
