#2

INPIM Electronic Newsletter #2 for July 13, 2000

CONTENTS:

Training Course on "Capacity Building for Participatory Irrigation Management" in Bari, Italy from September 11 to 20

A ten-day training course on "Capacity Building for Participatory Irrigation Management" will be held on the campus of the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari (Italy) from September 11 to 20. The course is being cosponsored by the World Bank,the Bari Institute, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the International Network on Participatory Irrigation Management (INPIM).

The course is aimed at upper-middle and senior professionals in borrowing countries or in international development agencies (including Bank staff) who are involved in irrigation reforms. While most participants will come from irrigation/drainage agencies or related training institutes, we are also interested in attracting researchers and NGO staff who are working on reforms in this sector.

Please pass this information to your colleagues and/or country counterparts who could benefit from detailed study of participatory irrigation management. Prospective participants should contact the course organizer directly, requesting registration details.

The cost for the 10-day course, including local transportation, food, lodging, and incidentals, is $1,850. Participants need to make their own financial arrangements, possibly through project training budgets.

Please contact the course coordinator, Prof. Atef Hamdy (Director of Research, Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari), at the following address:

Email: hamdy@iamb.it [with copy to: caldarulo@iamb.it]

Fax: (39-080) 7806 206 Tel: (39-080) 4606 287

Background

This is the fourth year that this course is being offered, and each year it is modified in response to client feedback as well as our own sense of changing priorities. Participants learn details of irrigation reform programs in "success" cases (Mexico, Turkey, and Andhra Pradesh, India), as well as global concepts of participation,management reform, regulatory frameworks, capacity building, etc. Issues of poverty-oriented water development and gender dimensions are also covered. Much of the program is devoted to shared assessments and suggestions of reform programs in the participants' own countries.

Field visits to user-managed irrigation systems in Italy provide concrete examples for discussion and comparison. This year's new topics include the role of the private sector (and users' management roles within a private sector context), and benchmarking the reform process. An overview of the course and provisional program are posted on the INPIM website http://www.inpim.org

Please contact INPIM or David Groenfeldt at the World Bank <dgroenfeldt@worldbank.org> for any further questions or information or to discuss the relevance of the program for prospective candidates.