Pakistan Gold Medal Award

INPIM member and Colorado State Universtiy professor, Dr. Wayne Clyma, has received a rarely given award from the government of Pakistan for his long-term contributions to improving water-management practices in that country. At a recent irrigation-management seminar held in Lahore, Pakistan, Professor Clyma was honored with the Government of Pakistan Gold Medal Award for his meritorious service in water management. The award recognized the contributions from Clyma in developing an understanding for the need to improve Pakistan's farm-water management system. 

Ironically, Clyma himself points out that at one time his opinions weren't very popular in Pakistan. Almost 25 years ago, he was the first to publicly dispute the widely accepted notion that Pakistan'swater-management system for farms was the most efficient in the world. Clyma, professor in the Department of Chemical and Bioresource Engineering, created controversy and drew criticism when he and hisPakistani co-workers first reported their findings in the early 1970's. The findings contradicted assumptions of international consultants and Pakistan government agencies about the country's efficient use of water. 

However, Clyma said a complete change of viewpoint has taken place in Pakistan in the past 25 years. With support from a Colorado State University field team and funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, Pakistan took Clyma's early findings seriously. The Colorado State field team and the Pakistan agencies subsequently developed on-farm water management programs in all four of its provinces. 

Workshop on Gender and Water Management

The International Irrigation Management Institute (IIMI) is organizing an international workshop on Gender and Water Management in Irrigated Areas.

``Our idea is to bring together people of differing backgrounds but in related fields (such as gender analysis; property rights; privatization;collective action) together with others working in more traditional IIMI areas of irrigation, water resource management and water scarcity. Examples of broad areas of collaboration could include topics such as multiple uses of water in irrigation systems; participation of women in water users'organizations; and the gender impact of the privatization of irrigationsystems. The aim of the Women and Water (WAW) workshop, as we currently see it, would be basically two fold. It would be to formulate a rigorous state-of-the-art overview of the important concepts, policies and problems in the broad area of Women and Water, and to help develop a research and action agenda for the future that would be taken up by the Women and Water Program

A five-day program has been planned to take place in Sri Lanka, from September 15-19 1997. We hope to publish the papers written for the workshop in an edited volume, which will be widely disseminated. 

Shirish Baviskar
IIMI
P.O. Box 2075
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Fax: 94-1-966-854
email: s.baviskar@cgnet.com 

PIM Capacity Building Course 

EDI and the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari, will be organizing a 3-week course on Capacity Building for PIM, from August 30 to September 20, 1997 in Bari, Italy. The course will provide an opportunity for those already involved in irrigation management training to consider in detail the generic issues and implications of PIM as well as several country cases, and to develop course materials and capacity building strategies for their own countries. The course will include field visits to user-managed irrigation systems in southern Italy, as well as class presentations and discussions. For further information, please contact:

Prof. Atef Hamdy
Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari
Via Ceglie, 9
70010 Valenzano, Italy
Fax: 39-80-780-6206

INPIM Board Meeting at Tokyo Seminar 

The Third International Seminar on PIM, which is being held in Tokyo from May 26 to June 1, 1997, will also be the venue for INPIM's Second Annual Meeting of its governing board. The seminar, jointly organized by EDI and the Japanese Institute for Irrigation and Drainage (JIID), will convene participants from about 17 countries to learn about Japan's approach to PIM, and to learn from each other.

INPIM Board members attending the seminar will meet separately to deal with the business ofrunning our organization, and will also host a general session on INPIM aspart of the seminar program. Reports on both the seminar and the Board Meeting will be included in the next issue of this newsletter.

Copies of the INPIM Annual Report, which will be discussed at the Board meeting, will be mailed to all INPIM members immediately after the meeting. Readers who are not members mayobtain a copy of the Annual Report by sending a request to the INPIM Coordinator at the Secretariat address.