NBCBN 5th regional workshop on “Environmental Aspects for River Engineering” February 2009, Uganda

The workshop was organized by the NBCBN-RE Secretariat in collaboration with Makerere University (the Hosting Institution of the Research Cluster) in Uganda, January 2009, under the title of "Fifth Regional Workshop on Environmental Aspects of River Engineering” during the period from 28 to 31 January 2009. The workshop was convened at the Equatoria Hotel, Uganda.
The workshop started by a one day seminar on the cluster topic where different presentations from international and regional resource persons were delivered in addition to presentations from the cluster group coordinators on the groups’ achievements and progress. On an open discussion several issues were raised that are considered to be very important for the cluster future activities.

The research topics discussed during the workshop are:

• Applied Methodologies and Guidelines for Carrying out CBA, RA and SEA for the Nile Riparian Countries ,
  Cluster research (group 1)
• Environmental Impact Assessment Tools and DSS, Cluster research (group 2)
• Future Hydropower Scenarios Under the Influence of Climate Change for the Riparian Countries of Lake Victoria Basin, Integrated research
• Supporting collaborative development and use of water engineering research knowledge in Uganda, Local Action research

The workshop report including the main conclusions and findings will be published soon on the NBCBN platform.

Publication of NBCBN Knowledge Network Survey report published, 2008

The Network has the great pleasure to announce that the Knowledge Network Survey Report, 2008 is published and can be accessed through NBCBN platform under the Network Shared Folder.  NBCBN allocated a prize of 100 US$ for the full completion of the survey questionnaire. A random sampling from all network members who fully completed the questionnaire was done and NBCBN has the pleasure to announce the following WINNERS:

Mr. Ntakimazi, Burundi
Mr. Benjamin Okelloh Ndwallah, Kenya
Mr. Mitiku Bedru Gochefo, Ethiopia
Mr. Abbas Abadalla Ibrahim, Sudan
Mr. Yasser Hamdi Elwan, Egypt

NBCBN would like to thank all the members who contributed to the questionnaire and their valuable inputs and comments which enriched the developed survey report and we would highly appreciate it if you send your feedback on the published report.

Special Issue of the Nile Water Science & Engineering Magazine

During the Nile Basin Capacity Building Network Seminar and workshop held in Cairo in 2004, participants from all ten Nile countries decided to address in a multidisciplinary setting the impact of climate change on water resources system. The innovative approach of developing knowledge networks was considered as an ideal mechanism to contribute to the implementation of a large multi disciplinary research on the impact of climate change on water resources systems. It uses the potential power of a network of professionals in solving complex problems in a stimulating, collaborative regional environment. 

The NBCBN-RE has launched its Multi-Disciplinary research activity on: "The Impact of Climate Changes on the Nile Basin Water Resources" in Cairo, December 2008. During this workshop, a number of 18 papers were presented in oral and poster sessions. Due to the importance of the research topics presented, NBCBN took the initiation to publish a special issue of its Scientific Magazine on CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT AND ADaPTATION

NBCBN announced the call for full papers in November 2008, the dead line for Full papers submission is extended till mid of March 2009. This magazine issue is expected to be published in May 2009. NBCBN members are encouraged to submit papers that reflect their research works in the field of this special issue to be reviewed and published.

NBCBN Upcoming Events

According to the work plan of the network in 2009, a series of regional workshops was planned to take place between January and April 2009, to cover the different Clusters, Integrated and Local Action research activities.

The first of this series was the regional workshop of the Environmental Aspects for River Engineering cluster which was held at the end of January 2009, the workshop was hosted by Makarere University, Uganda. The final dates of the workshops are shown below:

More Details on the workshops objectives and outputs will be published on NBCBN web platform.

Network Managers Meeting, Sri-Lanka, December 2008

NBCBN participated in the 6th annual meeting of the managers of the networks affiliated with Cap-Net in Kandy, Sri Lanka, from 1 to 4 December 2008. The focus of the meeting was on review of developments in the networks and a mid-term program evaluation. They provided an opportunity to identify and strategies the way forward for the rest of the current phase of Cap-Net and future plans. The main focus of the meeting was about the “Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Plan (MELP)” of the networks. The NBCBN manager facilitated a special session in the workshop focused on “Knowledge Management and sharing mechanisms between networks”. The main concluded issues from this session were:

• Develop a much better communication strategy
• Promote network activities through more input from networks to newsletter, and add members to e-list on website.
• Consider Language issue.
• Give networks larger stocks of training materials
• Emphasis on dissemination strategy
• Continue monitoring, improve consistency in application and be more focused.
• Updates regularly networks upcoming activities

Overview on NBCBN Research Activities

Research title: Applied methodologies and Guidelines for Carrying out CBA, RA and SEA for the Nile Riparian Countries

In this issue we would like to highlight the research activities of the second group under the Environmental Aspects Research Cluster which is hosted by Makerere University, the hosting institution of Uganda node. The group started the research activities in January 2007. The group is coordinated by Dr. Zablon I. Oonge, University of Nairobi, Oonge@uonbi.ac.ke, the group scientific advisors are Ir. Joop de Schutter and Lindsay Beevers, UNESCO-IHE and the group composition is as follows:

• Dr. Zablon I. Oonge, Oonge@uonbi.ac.ke
• Dr.Bennie Mangeni, Uganda, mangben@tech.mak.ac.ug
• Dr.Mohamed Mohamed Abdel-Latif , Egypt, m_abdel-latif@hri-egypt.org  
• Dr. Mohd El Muntasir Ahmed, Sudan, ahmemoh@iit.edu
• Eng. Margaret Aanyu,Uganda
• Eng.Irene Nansubuga, Uganda

The long term objectives of the research tackled by this group are i) Develop methods for Cost Benefit Analysis, Risk Assessment/Analysis and Strategic Environmental Assessment for adoption in planning purposes for EIA processes. ii) Establish a unified system for CBA/RA/SEA in the EIA process for Nile riparian countries.
While the short term objectives are i) Developing the methods for CBA, RA and SEA in EIA process in river engineering. ii) Develop appropriate guidelines on CBA, RA and SEA for the Nile Riparian Countries

The expected outcomes of the research are

• Development of the First Framework of SEA Within the Nile Basin Countries
• Development of  guidelines for CBA, RA and SEA
• Providing guidance for SEA conducts for the Nile Basin Region
• Strengthen the professional society in the SEA field (capacity-building).
• Production of Training Materials

According to the group work plan, the final report will be delivered by end of September 2009.