Staff Training Programme on Water and Rights.
Kathmandu, Nepal, January 05-12, 2010.

SaciWATERs organised this training programme in partnership with Nepal Engineering College (NEC) and partnered with the Environment Law Research Society (ELRS), New Delhi, in developing the concept note and session plans. A total of eight members from the academic staff of the Partner Institutes (PIs) were nominated to attend the programme. The training comprised of five days of classroom sessions, a day for developing a course module on effective teaching style and a two-day field trip to the rural areas of Chitwan district.

Third Gender Water Equity Training.
Pune, India, November 23-27, 2009.

This training workshop on Gender, Water and Equity was the third in a series for researchers, policy makers, development practitioners, academics, and activists from the South Asian region as part of the Crossing Boundaries project. The training was jointly organised by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; South Asian Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs), Hyderabad; Gender and Water Alliance (GWA); and the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM). The five-day training programme had a total of 26 participants (eight males and eighteen females) from five south Asian countries – India (nine), Nepal (six), Bangladesh (five), Sri Lanka (four) and Pakistan (two).

Participation by SaciWATERs personnel in : Asian Regional Working Conference (ARWC) on Women and Water.
Marawila, Sri Lanka, November 06-08, 2009.

Meeting and Greening Challenges in Water Security, Food Security and Climate Change for Asian Women is a worldwide movement of eighteen major umbrella organisations for women in South America, Africa, Asia and Western & Eastern Europe. This conference was organised by Women for Water Partnership (WfWP) in association with NetWwater, a network of women water professionals in Sri Lanka. The conference had a two-fold agenda: to have thematic paper presentations and to work on case studies which would be developed as project proposals for funding by WfWP. It also had a fieldwork consisting of visits to two illegal river sand mining areas. SaciWATERs staff presented a thematic paper: Gender inclusive IWRM in Education and Research – A case of crossing boundaries project in South Asia in the conference. There were about a hundred participants from various Asian countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, India, Korea and Philippines.

Participation by SaciWATERs personnel in : Conference on Organising Water Education Regionally Three Southern continents meet.
Entebbe, Uganda, october 31-November 02, 2009

The conference, organised by Concertación, WaterNet and SaciWATERs/Crossing Boundaries and coordinated by Wageningen University, The Netherlands, established a creative dialogue between three Southern-based water education networks: from Southern and Eastern Africa, South Asia and South America (the Andes). The conference focused on regionally shared water management problems to provide new windows of opportunities for regional collaborative approaches to water education in the South. A total of ten participants from Crossing Boundaries project, SaciWATERs, participated in the event and actively participated during the entire session. Overall it was a learning experience and there was a demand from the partners to have similar sharing meetings within the region. Both WaterNet and SaciWATERs expressed their commitments to invite one representative from the other two networks in the international events to be organised in future.

Participation by SaciWATERs personnel in : The World Water Week.
Stockholm, Sweden, August 16 – 22, 2009.

The World Water Week in Stockholm is the annual meeting place for the planet’s most urgent water-related issues. Organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), it brings together experts, practitioners, decision makers and leaders from around the globe to exchange ideas, foster new thinking and develop solutions. The theme for 2009 was Responding to Global Changes: Accessing Water for the Common Good.

The low percentage of women water professionals in South Asia is recognised as one of the constraints for gender sensitive water resources management. Most of the analyses around women’s lack of participation at various levels in the water sector have remained limited to socio-cultural constraints. There is very little understanding as to how the culture and history of each sector contributes towards constraining women in participating effectively. It is in this context that a study on women water professionals was undertaken in five South Asian countries by the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) and South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs). The main findings of the study ‘The Status of Women Water Professionals in South Asia’ was presented at the seminar organised at this World Water Week.

Staff Training Programme on Climate Change and Water: Vulnerability and Adaptation.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, August 02 – 09, 2009.

SaciWATERs organised this staff training programme in partnership with Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, one of the Crossing Boundaries Partners in Bangladesh. A total of eight academic staff members, nominated by the four CB Partner Institutions (PIs), attended the training programme. It included four and a half days of classroom sessions as well as two and a half days of field visit in the rural areas of Gaibandha (which is susceptible to flood and inundation hazards). The final day constituted discussing and developing course modules of the training topics for the respective PIs.

Second Gender Water Equity Training.
Mumbai, India, April 27 – May 01, 2009.

The Gender, Water and Equity Training was jointly organised by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, South Asian Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs), Hyderabad,  Gender and Water Alliance (GWA), and the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), Pune. A total of 21 participants (including eight males), mainly from India (including those from the North Eastern part and J&K) and Nepal, attended the training. The five day training programme focused on gender, water and equity with a lot of emphasis on group work and policy analysis tools from gender and equity perspectives.

4th South Asia Water Research Conference.
Kathmandu, Nepal, May 04 – 06, 2009.

The Fourth South Asia Water Research Conference on Interfacing Poverty, Livelihood and Climate Change in Water Resources Development: Lessons in South Asia was organised by SaciWATERs with support from its CB partner, Nepal Engineering College. A total of 79 participants (including IWRM students) attended the programme. 26 research papers were presented in the conference, including five presentations by SAWA Fellows. At the concluding session, interdisciplinary nature of water issues was highlighted upon and ideas for future research endeavours in this sector were presented.

Participation by SaciWATERs personnel in : Fifth World Water Forum.
Istanbul, Turkey, March 16 – 22, 2009.

33,058 participants from 192 countries took part in the 5th World Water Forum, making it the world’s biggest ever water-related event. The Forum primarily served four main purposes: 1. To raise the importance of water in the political agenda, 2. To support the deepening of discussions towards the solution of international water issues in the 21st century, 3. To formulate concrete proposals and highlight their importance to the world, and 4. To generate political commitment.

SaciWATERs staff participated in the event with the following objectives: 1. to organise a side event: Up-scaling IWRM Education in South Asia: Which Boundaries to Cross? that evaluated the current status of water resources education in South Asia and identified challenges, opportunities and new initiatives in the sector as well as assessed the demand for interdisciplinary water professionals, 2. to participate in other events (presenting papers, coordinating sessions, etc) in individual capacity based on the outcomes of the Crossing Boundaries (CB) project, and 3. to network with other members and popularise the CB project with people participating at the WWF5.

Reader Workshop on Water and Health in South Asia.
Hyderabad, India, February 25 – 27, 2009.

The Reader Workshop, organised by the Crossing Boundaries Project, SaciWATERs, was an attempt to understand the interdisciplinary aspects of the interrelations between water and health. This reader would be the seventh volume in ‘Water in South Asia’ (WISA) series, to be published by SaciWATERs in collaboration with Sage Publications, New Delhi. A total of 21 papers were selected by the editors for presentation at the Reader Workshop. The lead authors of each paper were invited to present their papers.  In total 36 participants attended the workshop which included two days of paper presentations and a day of discussion on the structuring of the Reader. This workshop provided editors and authors an opportunity for personal interactions and detailed discussions, which led to more clarity on the content and structure of the Reader.

Staff Training Programme on Water and Health.
Hyderabad, India, February 16 – 23, 2009.

SaciWATERs organised this staff-training programme with an aim to enable the Partner Institutions (PIs) to develop a course module on Water and Health under the existing Post Graduation Engineering Programme in Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in their respective institutes. The staff training included five days of classroom sessions, two days of field activities in rural areas of Warangal district in Andhra Pradesh and a day of lively discussion on developing a course module on effective teaching style. A total of eight members from the academic staff of the PIs were nominated to attend the training programme.