MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT-2016|First Quarter

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT-2016|First Quarter
Friday, April 1, 2016

Dear Colleagues, 22nd March 2016, the World Water Day, with the theme “Better water, better jobs” provides us with the opportunity to delve upon the impacts of water management, good or bad, on the livelihoods and jobs. Irrigation and drainage provide impetus to the jobs in agriculture sector. Not only in agriculture, water is a provider of a variety of jobs: the unpaid job of the girl child forced to fetch water form long distances; the ill-paid job of a sewage system cleaner through manual labour or a farmer engaged in tendering his crops. The wellbeing - social, economic and mental - of the workers in all the cases depends on the way we manage our water. We can make these jobs better through better water management. I am sure that the international water virtuosos not limit their efforts in this direction to a specific day in a year, but promote public awareness on the importance of fresh water availability on creation of new jobs and the role of better water management in making these jobs better throughout the year. Commemorating achievements on this very important day provides the desired stimulus. During recent years, accessibility to reliable water resources has increasingly acquired the pivotal role in most local and regional development plans worldwide. 
This is well acknowledged by the global leaders through the recent adoption of the “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”, as part of the Development Agenda 2030. Water and food security, and poverty eradication hold the foremost position in these SDGs. The issue of water, food and energy nexus has to be main streamed in these goals. I believe that without concentrating on agricultural water management, and the rural development, fulfilling such goals are unattainable. In the past decades, developing irrigated areas in the world, particularly in developing countries, was overshadowed and affected by transferring management of the irrigation systems to users associations without achieving the required prosperity and success. ICID should implement its utmost measures to pave the way to provide appropriate guidelines upon the present and past, success and failure experiences worldwide. Such guidelines could be used for the present and future irrigation management transfer schemes. The 2nd Asian Irrigation Forum, organized by Asian Development Bank (ADB), held from 20-22 January at Manila, Philippine, highlighted various areas of irrigation such as revitalization of irrigation in Asia, a continent holding 70 percent of the world irrigated agriculture. ICID NEWS presents an article that provides briefly the outcomes of this forum with a view to inform the outcomes to the National Committees (see page 6). I encourage NCs to disseminate this among the interested public and private irrigation communities and adapt these outcomes suitably to meet their respective national goals. These would be further followed up at the 2nd World Irrigation Forum (WIF2) at Chiang Mai, Thailand from 6-8 November 2016. The International Steering Committee (ISC) of the 2nd World Irrigation Forum (WIF2) held its second meeting in Thailand and was satisfied with the praiseworthy attempts of Thailand National Committee on Irrigation and Drainage  (THAICID) in making all out efforts in its preparation. The hosts have planned for an excellent venue that provides an excellent background for an International Exhibition. I invite all ICID members, consultants, manufacturers, contractors, farmers and young professionals and those involved in the water industry to actively participate in this important event and the international exhibition. In order to privide a platform to all the Young Professionals interested in agriculture water management issues and help for a meaningful and coordinated discussions, ICID has recently launched a dedicated LinkedIn Group for young professionals “ICID Young Professional e-Forum (IYPeF)”. The group will serve as a platform for all information related to young professionals, training opportunities, selected openings, availability of scholarships etc. More than 20 African Young Professionals are sponsored by ICID and its partners. They will be starting a training course from 19-24 April in Cairo, Egypt and will also be attending the 4th African Regional Conference (ARC) that follows from 26- 28 April 2016 in Aswan, Egypt. I take the opportunity to invite all the national committees of the ICID, particularly the African members to attend this important regional conference by availing the opportunity of exchanging knowledge and knowhow on the specific issues of irrigation and drainage in Africa. I am hopeful that this regional conference will add value to regional scientific development. I look forward to meeting you all at this forthcoming fabulous event on the banks of Nile.

 Dr. Saeed Nairizi
 President, ICID