The Regional Water Initiative for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
From TrustAfrica wiki - African Regional Organizations
Algeria
Nawal Merabet
Public Information Associate
E-mail: nmerabet@worldbank.org
Tel: (213-21) 54 66 66 Egypt
Mariam Ahmed
E-mail: mahmed4@worldbank.org
Tel: (20-2) 574 1670
Egypt
Mariam Ahmed
E-mail: mahmed4@worldbank.org
Tel: (20-2) 574 1670
Lebanon
Mona Ziade
Communications Officer
E-mail: mziade@worldbank.org
Tel: (961-1) 987 800 Morocco
Najat Yamouri
Sr. Participations Officer
E-mail: nyamouri@worldbank.org
Tel: (212-37) 63 60 50
Morocco
Najat Yamouri
Sr. Participations Officer
E-mail: nyamouri@worldbank.org
Tel: (212-37) 63 60 50
Yemen
Samra Shaibani
Sr. Communications Officer
E-mail: sshaibani@worldbank.org
Tel: (967-1) 413 710 Washington HQ
Dina El Naggar
Communications Officer
E-mail: delnaggar@worldbank.org
Tel: (202) 473-3245
Washington HQ
Dina El Naggar
Communications Officer
E-mail: delnaggar@worldbank.org
Tel: (202) 473-3245
Vahid Alavian, valavian@worldbank.org
Description
The RWI emerged from the Regional Economic Summit held in Amman in October 1995. The underlying rationale was to address the impact of the overall scarcity of water in the MNA region on economic development. During consultations in Barcelona in March 1997, participating countries decided that the RWI would promote knowledge sharing through a series of regional seminars on policy reform in water resources management, followed by thematic workshops. The Regional Water Initiative thus provides a regional forum for promoting and facilitating water sector reform through dialogue and partnership and serves as a knowledge bank for design and implementation of reform. Its major activities are forcused on promoting:
- Development of best practice publications for groundwater and aquifer management for the MNA Region
- Water and Agriculture Policy Review in the MNA Region
- Water and Wastewater Reuse
- Private Sector participation in water management
MENA has adopted a strategy through which all these activities are carried out. This strategy involves rationalizing water management and policies, improving access to social and economic infrastructure, facilitating agricultural growth and competitiveness, enhancing rural non-agricultural and private sector economic activities and improving natural resource and environmental management.
The work of the RWI is being carried out through World Bank support and extensive participation from RWI partners. The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Commission (EC) contributed to the Cairo and Amman seminars held respectively in 1998 and 1999 respectively. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) supported workshops on groundwater resources (Sana'a, 2000) and water reuse (Cairo, 2001) and continues to support RWI's work. More recently, the World Bank has signed a 3-year partnership agreement with the Third World Water Forum (3WWF) Secretariat to assist the MNA region in the preparation of the forum and in its policy dialogue and investment strategy with countries of the region.
In addition to the existing co-sponsors, the RWI will work closely with the Arab Gulf Program for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND). Partnership between the 3rd World Water Forum and the World Bank in MNA region can greatly facilitate this process and provide the necessary assistance to interested countries in the region.
Challenges
Although water availability is crucial to all agricultural systems in MENA, variability, and thus vulnerability, varies significantly across production systems. Variability in agricultural income from year to year is high in MENA, with the standard deviation of the agricultural GDP growth rate averaging 33 percent and 25 percent for Morocco and Jordan, respectively. Thus countries with high variability have been experiencing negative growth or stagnation in agricultural value added over the decade.
Water policies are crucial in all MENA countries. Other important policy areas include natural resource degradation, land tenure issues, food subsidies, and rural infrastructure. There is need for policies in these areas. For the development of the irrigated and humid mixed system, access to export markets is also essential. The largest trading partner for most MENA countries is the EU. The EU’s policies are quite restrictive and limit export expansion by MENA countries.
Illiteracy rates are high, especially for women. On average, half of the women are illiterate in the region and the situation in rural areas is worse. In Yemen and Morocco, only half of school-age children in rural areas are in school, as compared with 80-90 percent in urban areas.
Access to safe drinking water and sanitation for the rural population is quite low in many MENA countries and well below access in urban areas. Public social safety nets are generally quite weak in rural areas, a problem which is accentuated by the high variability in rainfall and agricultural production and which leaves a large fraction of the rural population vulnerable.
Opportunities
Progress on bridging the gender gap in social indicators has been impressive in MENA, mainly because of heavy public sector investment in education and health sectors, from which women have benefited significantly. However, this has not had a commensurate increase in women's access to the public sphere as measured by such indicators as labour force and political participation. On both of these indices, the MENA region stands far below other developing regions. This has a significant impact on MENA's growth and development. A key entry point to bring about change is to focus on women's economic rights. This focus will capitalize on the Bank's comparative advantage of economic development and strengthen the work of other institutions that address rights-based approaches.
