Water JPI Workshop at the Cairo Water Week

The Water JPI is organizing a workshop on “Strengthening EU-Africa Cooperation in Water RDI: challenges and opportunities”. The three-hour event is part of the Cairo Water Week that will address the main theme “Water, Population and Global Change: Challenges and Opportunities”. It will be held online and onsite on Tuesday 26 October 2021, from 12.00 to 16.00 CEST.

The aim of this Water JPI workshop is to explore opportunities for collaboration between Europe and continental Africa in water Research, Development and Innovation, RDI. It will mainly target at development banks, research funding agencies, international organisations dealing with water management and capacity development as well as research operators. 

The Workshop is organised in collaboration with the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) and the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT).

WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

Programme

The event is structured around two high-level panel discussions, moderated by Salma Essawi (ASRT) and Adrian Healy (Cardiff University, UK), on:

• Alignment of RDI programmes between Africa and EU
• Social innovation: the social debate on competing use of water in some regions of Africa, and how to increase capacity development and stakeholders and private sector participation for water RDI.

The expected outcomes of this side event are to seek modalities for enhanced cooperation between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Opportunities for knowledge and information sharing and knowledge and technology transfer will be sought. 

The active participation of African partners in the side event, both from southern Mediterranean countries and sub-Saharan countries will feed the Water JPI and other regional programmes in the development of their international cooperation strategy in the near future, the exchange of ideas and practices on alignment, and the identification of collaborative opportunities with partner initiatives.

Speakers and Panellists

We are honoured to count on the participation of Daan Dutoit, Deputy Director-General of International Cooperation and Resources at the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) of the Republic of South Africa, for the Keynote speech.

The event will gather as panellists:

• Nienke Buisman, European Commission, DG RTD.F.2 Head of Unit for Global Approach and International Cooperation in R&I Africa
• Majed Elsadek, representative from the PHEMAC project - Participatory hub for effective mapping, acceleration and capitalization of the Water Energy and Agri-Food Nexus best practices
• Maurice Héral, French National Research Agency (ANR) and former Water JPI Chair
• Gustavo Perez, representative from the NEX-LABS project - Nexus-driven open Labs for competitive and inclusive growth in the Mediterranean
• Amr Radwan, Head of Research & Innovation Management at the ASRT
• Mamohloding Tlhagale, South African Water Research Commission (WRC)
• Jean Albergel, Senior Scientist in hydrology at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD)
• Octavi Quintana, PRIMA Director
• Craig Sheridan, principal investigator of the URBWAT project - Designing, implementing, monitoring and understanding a grey-water drainage and partial treatment system within an urban informal settlement
• Uta Wehn, Associate Professor of Water Innovation Studies, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education and Adlerbert Visiting Professor of Marine Citizen Science for Sustainable Development, University of Gothenburg

Supporting Documents

Water JPI Key Achievements (April 2021)

IC4Water Policy Brief - Conclusions on business models for addressing SDGs and reducing the Death Valley of projects to create a Water-Smart Society beyond Europe (October 2021)

For further information, contact the Water JPI Secretariat – waterjpisecretariat@agencerecherche.fr