WaPOR 2 inception workshop in Tunisia

On March 30th, a WaPOR phase 2 inception workshop was held in Tunis, Tunisia, welcoming 20 in-person participants and some online participants. Attendees came from a wide range of backgrounds and institutions such as: the Bureau of Planification and Hydrological Balance, the General Directorate of Water Resources, the General Directorate of Rural Engineering and Water Exploitation, the National Observatory of Agriculture, among others. Representants from higher education and research institutions were also present.

The workshop was held entirely in French. It started with welcoming notes from the FAO representative in Tunisia, Mr. Philippe Ankers, followed by Ms. Faten Khamessi, Chief of Staff to the Minister, and finally Ms. Sabrina Waltmans, the Agricultural Counselor to Algeria and Tunisia at the Dutch Embassy in Tunisia, gave the last introductory remarks. Ms. Khamessi highlighted the importance that Tunisia gives to addressing its water scarcity issues, mentioning the close collaboration that the country has had with the FAO and speaking of the upcoming deepening of this collaboration with the second phase of the project, which aligns with the country’s objective to use new technologies to acquire more reliable water data for water accounting. According to Ms. Khamessi, WaPOR will be a key tool for the evaluation of water-saving and water management policies, but also will offer to each of the participating countries, the gift of experiences, facilitating an exchange of knowledge regarding agricultural production systems that perform well in terms of water productivity. 

The workshop was a success in terms of attendance but also in regards to the wealth of information that was gathered during the discussion sessions where the needs and priorities in Tunisia were the primary lens through which were discussed the ways in which the WaPOR project might be implemented in the country. In fact, the second phase of WaPOR is more demand-driven than the first, and the outputs of the inception workshop are a crucial element in the elaboration of a project implementation plan.