Gulilat Berhane
Ministry of water Resources
It is a privilege and honour for me to welcome you all on behalf of the organising committee and on my own behalf to the workshop on ‘Integrated water and land management research and capacity building priorities for Ethiopia’.
The workshop was conceptualised during the first visit by the high-level experts of the International Water Management Institute in February 2002. Since then efforts have been made to organise this workshop in a manner that enables it to give the best opportunity to all stakeholders in the field of water and land, which are the most important factors of production in an agrarian economy. In the last ten months, invitations have been forwarded for public and private institutions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and professionals to present papers and participate in the workshop. Funds were also raised from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Global Mechanism (GM) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
As a result, today we have more than 75 participants from 24 government institutions, 8 private institutions, 3 NGOs, 10 bilateral and 8 multilateral institutions and freelance experts.
In the coming two and a half days, 23 papers will be presented and plenary discussions will also be conducted.
Ladies and Gentlemen
For the benefit of our respected guests, who may not able to be with us in the subsequent sessions, I now call upon Dr Doug Merrey to give us a brief highlight on the goal and expected outputs of the workshop.
I thank you.