A new World Bank report collates a wealth of experience in managing limited water resources. Niveen Wahish speaks to the co-authors Believe it or not, Egypt is under the water poverty line. At 900 cubic metres per capita per annum, Egypt is below the water poverty index of 1,000 cubic metres per capita per annum. And, according to World Bank findings, that figure is expected to fall to "670 cubic metres by 2017 unless policies are implemented to sustainably manage growing demand." Yet Egypt is probably the country that is best off in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. According to Vijay Jagannathan, World Bank water sector manager for the MENA region, Yemen and Djibouti are the worst off in the region at around 100 cubic metres per capita per annum. He pointed out that Yemen's population of 20 million is relying on ground water that is running out. Desalination is a costly alternative. But whether it is Egypt or Yemen, what Jagannathan is most concerned about is the growing population. "It is not so much a scarcity issue, but scarcity in relation to the population," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. In fact, in terms of water scarcity, MENA is the scarcest region worldwide. "It has large population centres and big economies all dependent on very limited water," said Jagannathan who is also one of the co-authors of a World Bank report launched this week in Cairo entitled Water in the Arab World: Management Perspectives and Innovations. The new publication documents work carried out in case studies and personal experiences of various World Bank staff and consultants covering various aspects of water management. Over 525 pages, it tackles laws regulating the water sector, anticorruption policies, water between shared borders, waste water reuse, engineering solutions and community participation in the decision-making process. With water scarcity being a common factor among countries of the region, Jagannathan argues that solutions depend on the country context. Examples of these solutions can be found in the report. One example is the work done in Egypt in the Delta area. Hani El-Sadani, World Bank senior water resources engineer and one of the report's co-authors, details how the findings of a pilot project covering 6,000 feddans are helping to improve irrigation in an area of 500,000 feddans of the Nile Delta area in an "integrated improvement and management programme". "In Egypt, the present system is not capable of meeting the farmers' demands so the government has initiated a programme where they convert all the small ditches, close to the fields, into pipes." "There is an urgent need to make water use more efficient," says Juan Morelli, agricultural economist. "With certain changes in the operation of irrigation systems, huge savings of water, up to 30 per cent, could be attained." That, he said, would liberate water for other uses and for future expansion. Furthermore, according to Jose Simas, consultant on water resources management and another co-author of the World Bank report, the water saved will help Egypt achieve its strategy of horizontal expansion outside the Delta and into the desert. But the key to success of these projects is to make the farmer the centre of everything, says Jagannathan. "Planning used to take place from the top down. But here [in this project] the farmer is the centre," he said, adding that, "the farmer is happy because it improves the amount of water he can get, which means he can grow higher value crops and have better income from the land." Jagannathan underlines that experience has shown that talking to farmers and making them understand the gravity of the situation help in getting them aboard. "They are aware that if there is too little water, they will suffer." Jagannathan recommends that communities be involved in all aspects of water management. "The community have to see that what they are getting is better than what they had earlier. Part of community involvement comes automatically because of their own interest." That involvement, according to El-Sadani, can be enhanced through water user associations. "Organising the farmers, providing them with training on how to manage the water itself is one way of bringing awareness regarding the issues of water on the national level." Moreover, "if the right infrastructure is in place, farmers will have different options. They can easily switch to other crops which are less water consuming," says Abdel-Hamid Azad, senior irrigation engineer. "The farmer in the Delta has the best land in the world, but to switch to a different crop he would need a good drainage system," says Jagannathan. In agriculture it is also important is that the farmer get "reliable water at the right time, the right quality and the right place to support his business decisions." "Today we have the advantage of technology and we have a lot of people in the region who know how to use the technology. We need to take advantage of that technology," Jagannathan added. "The role of water management is to provide the infrastructure so that people can make sensible decisions."
