Four Regional Alumnae Workshops about Water Integrity in the MENA region

The workshops are part of the regional Water Integrity Capacity Building programme that combines a series of trainings for water practitioners from different levels of government, utilities and CSOs. By combining peer-to-peer learning and professional mentorship in a participatory learning environment, the programme has an explicit focus on behaviour change – to enable the participants to translate the acquired knowledge through the trainings into pro-integrity changes on the ground. To achieve this, the project has created a professional mentorship programme for approximately 100 alumni who receive individual ‘on the job’ support to initiate integrity activities in their respective home organizations or area of work.

The first step of the Programme was to conduct National Water Integrity Assessments in the five target countries Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia. Based on these and the experiences gained by the programme partners, the subsequent trainings were adapted to the capacity needs and objectives of each target group. For example, the findings of the assessments were used to inform the training material and to produce a regional synthesis report and a series of regional and national policy briefs.

The national trainings targeted selected groups working in the water sector and approximately 370 practitioners were trained, out of which 49% were women. As a follow-up, four Regional Alumni Workshops were conducted, focusing respectively on women, civil society, operators and decision makers. The trainings build the participants’ capacities to become effective agents of change by providing them with skills related to stakeholder mobilization, project management and conflict management. A specific module is also dedicated to gender issues in Integrated Water Resources Management and the links between gender and corruption in the water sector.

The last Regional Workshops took place 17-20 October, in Amman, and targeted 25 mid-level managers from the water sector of all five countries. During this workshop, participants had the opportunity to share ideas and learn about innovative practices related to Water Integrity and IWRM and to compare their change processes with other those of their peers from countries in the region. They also identified best practices and solutions to shared problems and created collaborative networks that will allow the participants to establish strong working relationships. The networks will further help them to identify opportunities for collaboration and partnerships that can drive change.

During the workshop, the Rangers of the Royal department for Environmental Protection presented their role in enforcement and control of environmental violations in Jordan.