SECRETARIAT

Since July 1998 the Secretariat is being hosted by FAO and benefits from its legal status. In addition to the availability of FAO’s wide and considerable expertise in agriculture, water management and development, IPTRID benefits significantly from their logistical support, e.g. computer network and support, system development, office equipment and services, financial system and security. This situation enables the team to concentrate effectively on its core activities. On 20 May 2003, the Assistant Director-General of the Agriculture Department, Ms Louise O. Fresco, and the Chairperson of the Consultative Group, Mr Peter Lee, signed the extension of the Memorandum of Understanding with particular reference to the arrangements regarding the Secretariat, from 31 July 2003 to 31 December 2007. All other conditions of the original Memorandum of Understanding remain unchanged.

Concerning the staff of the Programme, due to the departure of Olivier Cogels in July 2004 and in order to face the leadership gap, our Governing Board together with FAO moved rapidly and decided to assign to Mr Kenji Yoshinaga, AGL Director, the role of Officer-in-Charge and to appoint Mr Carlos Garcés-Restrepo as the Assistant Programme Manager - to effectively carry on the daily programme activities, with the support of all our staff. Mr Jean Verdier continues unchanged as Deputy Programme Manager. As these lines are written the selection process for the appointment of the new Programme Manager is underway. The current staffing situation can be seen in Table 1.

STAFF DEPARTURES

Mr Olivier Cogels served as Programme Manager of IPTRID from June 2002 until July 2004. During these 25 months he created a new problem oriented strategy according to donors’ requests and needs. The new strategy was validated in September 2003 in Montpellier by the governance bodies and it is currently being successfully implemented. Olivier has now moved to The Mekong River Commission - formed by Cambodia, PDR Lao, Thailand and Viet Nam - as the Chief Executive Officer of the Commission and resides in Vientiane, PDR Lao.

Mr Harry Denecke joined IPTRID as Regional Manager for Asia in May 2000. His position was partly funded by the Netherlands to benefit IPTRID’s theme “Sustainability of Irrigation and Drainage”. Harry is very experienced professional in the field of soil salinity and drainage and has been mainly involved in the formulation of the Asia Drainage Programme for the Humid Tropics (ADPHT), the Aral Sea Basin initiative and other project formulations. Mr Denecke’s services with IPTRID terminated in March 2004.

Ms Maria Eugenia Martinez joined IPTRID as a graphical designer consultant from January 2003 to July 2004. She was responsible for the design of IPTRID’s promotional documents including brochures, folders, leaflets, PowerPoint presentations, webpage, posters and advertisements. She holds a University Degree in Publicity and Marketing and ten years of professional experience.

NEW STAFF

Mr Kenji Yoshinaga holds a B.Sc. in Agricultural Engineering and a Ph.D. in Agriculture from the University of Kyusyu, Japan. He has worked several years for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) in Japan, first in posts of increasing responsibility in irrigation and rural development, project management and evaluation, economic and policy analysis of agricultural land and water resource uses and after as Head of European Division, Policy Research Institute. He has also served as Chairperson of the Working Party on Territorial Development Services (TDS) in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He is the Director of Land and Water Development Division of FAO since 2001.

Mr Carlos Garcés-Restrepo, Assistant Programme Manager, is a Water and Soils Engineer, with a Ph. D. degree from Cornell University, who brings to our Programme a professional experience of 30 years divided almost equally between Asia and Latin America. He is a specialist in water management with emphasis on the performance of irrigation and drainage systems; from small to large scale. He has also worked extensively as an irrigation institutions specialist particularly in relation to Irrigation Management Transfer and Water Users Associations. He has occupied several posts as Head/Team Leader/Project Leader of both Research and Development projects and has been with FAO since early 2002. He has worked with the CGIAR system, at IRRI, CIAT and IWMI. He has had long-term assignments in Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Mr Franck Besseat, the new IPTRID Information Officer, will be responsible for the management of the project “Virtual Centre for Agricultural Water” and will support IPTRID in other information related activities. Mr Besseat holds an European M. Sc. in Computer engineering. He has extensive working experience in information systems formulation and implementation and data administration: needs assessment analysis and development and testing of prototypes. He also has experience in financial and administrative aspects of project management related to water management in France and abroad (Jordan, Morocco and Haiti) for governmental agencies. He has been involved in R&D programmes dealing with information systems on Water funded by the European Commission, in partnership with universities and private companies from UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

Ms Nadia Laouini joined the IPTRID Programme as Clerk since October 2003. She has four years experience in FAO. She monitors all IPTRID publications and mailing lists. She screens and maintains control of the IPTRID inbox and IPTRID News e-mail accounts forwarding relevant information to staff concerned. She assembles and summarizes data extracted from IPTRID Access for Mailing lists. She updates records on the database through different searches. She provides assistance to Staff as required.

Table 1. IPTRID current staffing situation as at December 2004.

CONSULTANTS

Mr Maher Salman joined the IPTRID team as a consultant in November 2001. His work was to assist in managing the IPTRID’s Information System (WCA infoNET) of which, since November 2002, he has been acting as Officer-in-charge. In addition, he was involved in the theme “irrigation modernization”. In this respect, his work included the provision of a case study on the progress of irrigation modernization in Syria, as part of the series of case studies on irrigation modernization conducted jointly with AGLW, and the identification of the needs for capacity building in irrigation modernization for which he conducted a worldwide survey on programmes related to this theme. Since January 2004, he has been involved in IPTRID’s activities in the Middle East, mainly Egypt and Syria, as a project coordinator as well as a technical team member.

Mr Wilfried Hundertmark was recruited in March 2004 as a Senior Water Management consultant. Wilfried has fourteen consecutive years of post-doctoral experience in irrigation and water management including long-term assignments in the Middle East (on behalf of GTZ) and in West Africa as a staff member of IWMI. He was involved in numerous short-term assignments to African, Asian and East European countries on behalf of EU, FAO, IFAD and the World Bank. Since his arrival, he has been the team leader of three IPTRID missions: a capacity needs assessment mission to Zambia (May 2004), a rapid DrainFrame assessment study to Egypt (June 2004) and a stakeholder workshop in Egypt (October 2004). He also made a significant contribution to the success of an ICID workshop on Capacity Needs Assessment in Agricultural Water Management, held in Moscow (September 2004).

· SHORT-TERM CONSULTANTS

Mr Thomas E. Brabben, Irrigation & Drainage Specialist, he assessed the capacity needs for the irrigated agricultural sub-sector during a mission to Zambia.

Mr Daniel Corcos was hired to prepare a master CD-Rom containing the final report of the project titled “Identification et diffusion de bonne pratiques sur les périmètres irrigués en Afrique de L’Ouest”

Mr Gerald Cornish assessed the status of agricultural water management in Zambia focusing on the efficiency of existing irrigation planning, O&M functions and support service for smallholder irrigation systems.

Ms Rosemary Dawn Allison worked with IPTRID on the language editing of the document: Appropriate water-lifting technologies in West Africa - Final Report. She did the format, layout, cover design and camera ready copy and CD-Rom.

Mr Salim Elhakawati worked as a consultant for the WCA-Infonet information system. His assignment involved the provision and assessment of information entered into the system in the field of water and environment.

Mr Jan Hoevenaars worked as a consultant for the IPTRID Rapid Assessment Study on Integrated Planning of Irrigation and Drainage in Egypt as a study team member “Natural Resource Management Specialist”.

Mr Mohammed Islam Elmagd worked as a consultant for the WCA-Infonet information system. His assignment involved the provision and assessment of information entered into the system in the field of irrigation water management.

Mr Melvyn Kay worked as a consultant for the organization of the workshop held in Moscow titled “Capacity needs assessment in agricultural water management”. He prepared and presented a paper introducing a first draft of a methodological guideline on capacity needs assessment.

Mr Jacob Kijne was engaged to produce the Final Report of the Aral Sea Basin initiative and to present a seminar on findings and the way forward in early 2005.

Mr Ibrahim Mohamed Mahmoud worked as a consultant for the organization of the workshop held in Moscow titled “Capacity needs assessment in agricultural water management”. He prepared and presented a paper on experiences with institutional mapping to assess the needs for the development of water boards at district level in Egypt.

Mr Arona Niang worked as a consultant to support in the revision of the project identification HORTICA and established the contacts with the Belgian cooperation for potential financing.

Mr Geoffrey Pearce coordinates the activities of the Secretariat’s Network and is located at HR-Wallingford and IPTRID and has been the editor of our GRID magazine.

Ms Waltina Scheumann worked as a consultant for the IPTRID Rapid Assessment Study on Integrated Planning of Irrigation and Drainage in Egypt as a study team member “Institutional Specialist”.

Mr Roel Slootweg worked as a consultant for the IPTRID Rapid Assessment Study on Integrated Planning of Irrigation and Drainage in Egypt as a study team member “Ecologist”.

Mr Pierre Smits worked as a consultant to support in the revision of the project identification HORTICA and established the contacts with the Belgian cooperation for potential financing.

Ms Olga Zhovtonog worked as a consultant for the organization of the workshop held in Moscow titled “Capacity needs assessment in agricultural water management”. She prepared and presented a paper titled: “Changes in irrigation water management: the need for capacity development in the Ukraine”.