FAO.org

In many areas of the world, including the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region and Lebanon, sustainable and reliable delivery of water for irrigation and municipal use has become increasingly complex. This issue also extends to affect the protection of the ecosystems from water pollution. The issue is more often related to the governance of the resources to manage and protect them from pollution and over-abstraction, resolve conflicts over water, and ensure rights to water are respected. It is also about understanding water flow pathways in complex river basin systems. This is where water monitoring and accounting can play a crucial role to help water management institutions in managing complexity in light of the challenges facing the water sector.

In this context, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in collaboration with the North Lebanon Water Establishment (NLWE), which represents the Ministry of Water and Energy, is implementing the GCP/LEB/029/SWI project ‘Improved Water Resources Monitoring System/Integrated Water Resources Management at regional level in Lebanon’, funded by the Swiss Government.

The main objective of the project is to strengthen Lebanon’s water institutions improving their performance at regional level, thereby helping them to address the sector challenges for sustainable use of water resources.

In particular, Output (5) of the project ‘Informed decisions transferred to end-users to improve capacity for enhanced crop water productivity’, aims at empowering farmers, agriculture-related organizations, professionals and decision-makers to improve the productivity and resource-use efficiency of agriculture.