Egypt's Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel-Ati returned home from Kinshasa on Saturday, where he had a successful official visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During his visit, Abdel-Ati inaugurated the Rain and Climate Changes Forecast Centre in Kinshasa, the irrigation ministry said in a statement. The centre was carried out with an Egyptian grant to maximize the DR Congo's use of water resources and boost its capability to manage these resources. It is specialized in studying climate changes in the country to help protect the Congolese citizens from sudden climatic disasters, the statement said. The Congolese staffers at the centre have been trained by experts from the Egyptian irrigation ministry on dealing with rain and flood forecasts, aerial imagery systems, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS), hydrologic modeling, and writing specialized technical reports. This comes within the framework of Egypt's interest in transferring its expertise in the field of integrated management of water resources to its brothers from the Nile Basin countries in order to maximize the use of these resources, the statement added. Abdel-Ati said he held a number of meetings with senior officials in the DR Congo, in which he discussed opportunities to enhance cooperation between the two countries in the field of water management and means to achieve common interests for the benefit of the citizens of the two countries, according to the statement. Abdel-Ati, who arrived in Kinshasa on Thursday, was received by Congolese Vice Prime Minister Eve Bazaiba and a number of high-ranking officials in the Congolese government, in addition to Egyptian ambassador to Congo Hamdi Shaaban. The visit shows Egypt's belief in the necessity of achieving cooperation and coordination with the brotherly African countries to achieve the peoples' sustainable development goals and to reach optimal water management, especially in light of the challenges facing the water sector in many countries of the world.
