EMPOWERS @ The Stockholm World Water Week 2008

Stockholm - Sweden, 17 Aug 08 - 23 Aug 08

The ETG held a very successful and well attended Side Event at the Stockholm Water Week to launch the EMPOWERS publications as well as share our experiences. The ETG also presented a paper at the MENA Seminar on "Innovations in groundwater management for the Middle East and North Africa Region".

Click Read more for the ETG events' summaries, conclusions , presentations and for the Water Week 2008 overall Systhesis Report...

EMPOWERS Side Event

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

Sunday 17 August
Evening Side Event

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