FAO.org

Last Tuesday, October 25, the Technical Support Committee (TAC) of the KnoWat project in Senegal met for the last time at the Novotel hotel in Dakar to validate the results obtained by the project in Senegal and above all to discuss the prospects for consolidating and scaling up the said project.

The Committee was set up by order of the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Equipment and Food Sovereignty (MAERSA) of Senegal, on October 12, 2020, to ensure the supervision and monitoring of the implementation of the project.

The meeting was chaired by Mr Djibril Sall, Director of Hydro-agricultural Development and Infrastructure of SAED and about twenty representatives of the member institutions of the committee participated. The meeting was also extended to the focal points of Ross Béthio and Podor given their strong implications in the implementation of field activities, particularly with regard to water tenure and water governance at local level. Sofia Espinosa, Land and Water Tenure Expert based at FAO Headquarters in Rome, also participated in the meeting.

During the opening ceremony, Mr Sall thanked FAO and its partners for organizing this last meeting before the final and prospective national workshop of the project and especially for having given the opportunity to the members of the CAT to review the various results of the KnoWat project in Senegal.

This ceremony was followed by a series of presentations launched by Mr Lamine Samaké, National Coordinator of the project in Senegal who first of all made a reminder of the terms of reference of the meeting before dwelling on the activities planned by the project in Senegal.

The event allowed all the participants to give their feedback on the results obtained and the prospects to be explored for a good consolidation of the achievements. The TAC members recognized the valuable results obtained by the project in Senegal despite constraints linked to the COVID-19 pandemic during the implementation.