February 23, 2021
Professor Yasir Abbas Mohamed Appointed as the Minister of Water Resources, Irrigation and Electricity in the Republic of Sudan
Dear Professor Yasir Abbas Mohamed, we are delighted with your appointment as the Minister of Water Resources, Irrigation and Electricity (WRIE). Heartfelt congratulations from your family members of the Flood-based Livelihood Network (FBLN) Foundation.
Dear FBLN community, as you many of you are aware, in his previous position as the Director General of the Hydraulic Research Centre, Professor Yasir dedicated time and resources and made impactful contributions to the livelihood of the marginally poor flood-dependent and other farming communities in Sudan and across Africa. To our delight and honor, following his appoint as the Minister of WRIE, he immediately reached out for ideas and initiatives that could have lasting positive impact on the lives of the agricultural community and enhance the capacity of water and irrigation professionals at individual and institutional levels in Sudan and the region.
Minister Yasir Abbas Mohamed holds BSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Khartoum and an MSc in Hydraulic Engineering from IHE Delft, the Netherlands. He obtained his PhD with distinction from Delft University of Technology. He has extensive professional experience in water management and has made significant contributions to water management in Sudan and the region.
We once again congratulate Minister Yasir Abbas Mohamed with this important development, wish him well in his new position and look forward to a continuation of the good cooperation.
See TheWaterChannel.tv for one of his lectures on opportunities in spate irrigation. http://www.thewaterchannel.tv
DREAM ASAL Conference 2019
The Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and the Afar Bureau of Livestock, Agriculture and Natural resource Development and the GIZ SDR Support Programme are organizing the two-day ‘DREAM’ conference in Afar from 29th September till 3rd October 2019. The DREAM conference will focus on Development of Resilience Empowering Alternative Measures for Ethiopian Lowlands.
The conference focus will be on stock taking and defining a way forward. This will allow all stakeholders interested into Strengthening Drought Resilience in lowland areas to show / demonstrate their approaches. There might be proven measures from third parties which could be added to DVRPU or to more resilience in general. These approaches should be incorporated into overarching resilience strategies of pastoral and agro-pastoral communities and administration at different levels.
The conference focus will be on stock taking and defining a way forward. This will allow all stakeholders interested into Strengthening Drought Resilience in lowland areas to show / demonstrate their approaches. There might be proven measures from third parties which could be added to DVRPU or to more resilience in general. These approaches should be incorporated into overarching resilience strategies of pastoral and agro-pastoral communities and administration at different levels.
The DREAM conference will be preceded by a two-day workshop on the Challenge of invasive species: new ways of use or eradication (29 & 30 September) and a field day in Afar allowing participants to see different approaches in the field like Water Spreading Weirs, productive use of area under flooding, Dry Stone Measures, Solar Pumping for drinking water, Nurseries, etc..
If you are interested to join, contact the organizers through DREAM-ASAL.Conference2019@metameta.nl.
Please find the official announcement on our website.
Updates from NEWARBI project & mini barrages in Pakistan
We have started to work in two major spate areas in Pakistan to improve water distribution and to introduce a menu of good practice. In the next three years we will work with a larger number of communities in Naj Gaj (Sindh) and Bhag Nari (Balochistan). The idea is to develop a good standard modality to improve spate systems throughout the country. One early breakthrough in this new program is the quality of some special oils in these two area: organic and cold pressed but also having medicinal properties to control obesity and hair loss. Please contact us for more information.
As all crops in these areas thrive on the yearly renewed sediment the production by very nature is organic. We are in discussion with some organic procurement agency in this regard. There is also immense scope to improve and consolidate a new system of water distribution – especially in Bhag Nai where five traditional earthen bunds were replaced by mini-barrages. This appears to be a great engineering innovation: the barrages allow part pf the water to pass down – for instance for down steam domestic use or to pass down part of a large flood. In this commendable construction program by the Government of Balochistan there is also good attention for canals at good slope not allowing any sediment to build up.
Organic guar. Guar is one of the amazing crops in the dry flood systems of Pakistan. Guar or cluster bean is a non-calorie binding agent. It has many uses in industry and in food processing. Organic guar from the spate systems had an enormous potential. Very unique work has been done by Dr. Noman Latif and Dr. Muhammed Yaqoob of the Arid Zone Research Centre, PARC, D.I. Khan, Pakistan, showing that productivity increases of 50% are possible with good variety selection. Their findings can be accessed through the report on the FBLN website.
Publications from Pakistan
The Flood-Based Livelihoods Network of Pakistan has recently published two papers and an MSc-thesis. One paper and the thesis look into the effects of applying strip-cropping with chick pea in spate irrigated areas. An informative clip of the chickpea trials can be viewed through the waterchannel.tv.
The second paper looks into the impact of climate change on spate irrigation in Pakistan. All are available through the library of the FBLN.
The WaterChannel.tv
New video’s on Flood-based Livelihoods and Water Management in general are regularly shared through the Water Channel. Visit the waterchannel.tv for inspiration from other countries and to stay up-to-date.
Publication with Good practices for improved livelihoods
MetaMeta recently published an overview of ‘improved livelihoods opportunities in spate irrigation’, in short a catalogue containing an overview of several improvements in the management and utilization of spate irrigation systems are presented, based on good practices in different spate irrigation systems in the world. The document can be downloaded from the FBLN website.
Submitting document, pictures and other resources
The website of the network acts as a platform to disseminate and share our findings, project reports and experiences in different aspects of FBLS; technical, socio-economical, historical as well as policy and legislative aspects. Basically anything goes. We want to use the Resources Documents as a source of original material on FLBS, irrespective of the topic or the quality of the language.
In the resource documents there are photographs (library section) and training modules besides reports, theses (both in library section), videos and other documents.
If you have useful material, you are kindly invited to submit your work to info@spate-irrigation.org. When possible please accompany your papers or photos with a brief 10 – 20 word intro.