From 25 to 27 January, the 2nd edition of the IGAD Water Dialogue Forum took place at the Imperial golf Hotel in Entebbe, Uganda. This forum was held as hybrid event, with part of the attendees participating in Entebbe and several speakers joining in online. IGRAC researcher Neno Kukuric and Arnaud Sterckx were among those speakers, with the first participating in a discussion and the latter giving a keynote speech on capacity building.
Capacity building in groundwater
On day 2 of the forum, researcher Arnaud Sterckx gave a keynote speech on capacity building in groundwater, which served as introduction of the sub-theme covered in session 5. He started his speech with a more conceptual view on groundwater capacity building and then focused on examples of capacity building activities that IGRAC has carried out over the past years, with a particular focus on recent work in Southern Africa with SADC-GMI.
Later that day, Neno Kukuric participated in a panel discussion as part of session 7 on innovation in groundwater financing and technological development.
Groundwater for resilience
The theme of the Water Dialogue Forum was ‘Groundwater for resilience’ and it covered five sub-themes, namely:
- Groundwater for Peace and Stability;
- Groundwater for Climate Change and Drought Resilience;
- Groundwater for Socio-economic Development;
- Innovation in groundwater financing and Technological Development; and
- Capacity Building in Groundwater.