WaPOR 2 inception workshop in Mozambique

On March 29th, a WaPOR phase 2 inception workshop was held in Maputo, Mozambique, welcoming 31 participants, both in person and virtually, from a wide range of backgrounds and institutions such as the Municipal Council of the city of Maputo, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as well as the National Institute of Irrigation under it, the Water Research Institute and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, among others. In addition to those, a total of four higher education and research institutions were in attendance at the workshop. 

The workshop was held in Portuguese and English and benefited from interpretation services which bridged the gap between stakeholders of the two languages. 

The workshop was opened with remarks by Mr. Marteen Rusch, representing the Dutch Embassy in Mozambique, by Mr. Jippe Hoogeveen, the WaPOR project technical advisor and by Mr. Nelson Melo, a representative of the National Institute of Irrigation. 

Mr. Melo highlighted the relevance of  WaPOR in the Mozambican context by mentioning two projects that also have water productivity improvements at their core: FASIMO, a user-led project that aims to make irrigation schemes in Mozambique more productive, self-sustaining and equitable, and TISA, that stands for Transforming Irrigation in Southern Africa, that is a regional project covering Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe that aims to help these countries meet their objective of attaining food security while using limited water resources more sustainably. The overlap with WaPOR is undeniable, which means that the potential for the WaPOR project to contribute meaningfully to improving water use is great. Yet it requires a good understanding of the data, in its potential and limitations, by the stakeholders who are the main shapers of what the WaPOR project will look like in Mozambique. 

The goal of this workshop was to take a first step in that direction and understand, as the users themselves see it, what the needs are in the country and in which ways remote-sensing data can contribute to potential solutions to those needs. The workshop was a success in terms of attendance but also in regards to the wealth of information that was gathered during the discussions sessions.