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UNESCO Centres draft Water Management Curricula for Africa
On 24-25 July 2019, UNESCO Jakarta organized the 鈥淲orkshop for the Drafting of Water Management Curriculum for Africa鈥 in Jakarta. Five water-related Category 2 Centres and Chairs in Africa and Asia: Regional Centre for Integrated River Basin Management (Nigeria), African Regional Centre on Ecohydrology (Ethiopia), UNESCO Chair on Ecohydrology and Transboundary Water Management (Tanzania), Humid Tropics Centre Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), and the Asia Pacific Centre for Ecohydrology (Indonesia), and two Indonesian universities, participated in the workshop to jointly draft a Water Management Curricula for Africa.
The curriculum is being developed to reflect sub-Saharan Africa鈥檚 water education gaps and needs. The participants discussed the current state of water education in sub-Saharan Africa and the most critical water challenges in East and West Africa, and how ecohydrology and Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) could address the issues.
The representatives of the Humid Tropics Centre Kuala Lumpur, the Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) and the University of Timor in Indonesia shared their water education challenges and approaches as a lesson learnt from Asia. During the workshop, issues such as of water pollution, invasive species (water hyacinth), eutrophication, sedimentation, water supply, sedimentation, climate extremes (flood and drought), and urban water management were discussed in detail. Further recommendations for strengthening water education by adopting ecohydrology and IWRM were made, including the importance of creating and expanding youth employment opportunities in water management. The holder of the UNESCO Chair on Ecohydrology and Transboundary Water Management of Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania, Mr Makarius C Lalika, will lead the preparation of the final draft curriculum.
Supported by Malaysia Funds-in-Trust, this activity makes a particular contribution towards SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 15 (life on land) and SDG 4 (quality education).
