UNESCO-IHE envisions a world in which people manage their natural resources in a sustainable manner, and in which all sectors of society, particularly the poor, can enjoy the benefits of basic services.
The mandate given by UNESCO to UNESCO-IHE is to:
- strengthen and mobilise the global educational and knowledge base for integrated water resources management; and
- contribute to meeting the water-related capacity building needs of the developing countries and countries in transition.
Within this mandate the mission is defined as follows:
UNESCO-IHE's mission is to contribute to the education and training of professionals and to build the capacity of sector organisation, knowledge centres and other institutions active in the fields of water, environment and infrastructure, in developing countries and countries in transition.
The Institute associates with partners to do research in the context of integrated water resources management and aims at global dissemination and knowledge sharing.
UNESCO-IHE is dedicated to scientific research, postgraduate education and training in the fields of water, the environment and infrastructure. The Institute is a globally active "partner in action" in the developing countries, through solution-oriented research, education and capacity building operations. UNESCO-IHE determines education, training and research demands through its international network of 12,000 alumni in more than 120 countries, the Institute's community of partnerships, including public and private organisations active in water sectors worldwide, interactions with international agencies, ‘sandwich’ research projects, collaborative research projects and consultancy work. Together, representing an extensive network of international water professionals of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
The Hydraulics Research Institute (HRI) is one of the largest institutes in Africa and the Middle East, specializing in water related research and river hydraulics. Organized in four main departments - sediment and field measurements, calibration and instrumentation, physical modelling and mathematical modelling - HRI's principal task is to solve the hydraulic problems related to the multidisciplinary and multipurpose use of rivers and associated hydraulic engineering systems.
Established in 1975, HRI is one of the twelve research institutes of the National Water Research Centre (NWRC) advising the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI) in Egypt, as well as other national and international agencies. The institute has high quality facilities to support training courses in river engineering, such as field measuring equipment, hydraulic scale models, computers, and staff with extensive research and design experience.
Over the last 15 years HRI has received technical assistance from various international organisations such as Wallingford (UK), Colorado State University (USA) and WL|Delft Hydraulics (NL) and it has become a highly experienced institute capable of dealing with complicated technical tasks.
Next to its specific research tasks, the institute organised several training courses for various target groups in the area of applied Hydraulics. Starting in 1996 the institute organised a yearly diploma course on “Hydraulic Engineering in River Basins” and a number of short courses in fields of large interest with participants from the whole African continent including the Arab Peninsula.
ITC is an internationally recognized centre of excellence in international education. ITC aims at capacity building and institutional development of professional and academic organizations and individuals specifically in countries that are economically and/or technologically less developed.
The education is based on knowledge exchange between scientific and professional organizations in less developed countries on the one hand and those in the Western world on the other, whereby ITC acts as a two-directional gateway for knowledge exchange.
The knowledge field of ITC is geo-information science and earth observation, which consists of a combination of tools and methods for the collection - through aerospace survey techniques -, storage and processing of geo-spatial data, for the dissemination and use of these data and of services based on these data.
ITC's approach is application-oriented, directed at finding solutions for and strengthening civil society in addressing issues of local, national and global dimensions such as the multifunctional use of scarce resources, including space, the effects of climate change and environmental security.
Since the founding of ITC in 1950, its educational
programmers have served almost 15,000 mid-career professionals from over 160 countries (predominantly from the Third World). This has resulted in an internationally
recognized name and position as a knowledge institute in earth observation and geo-information science.
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