Call for applications of the AWA PhD Programme on "Water Governance and Policies: Building Capacity in the MENA Region through Cross-Learning"

 

1. Background and rationale
The overwhelming majority of water scientists in the MENA region are engineers. They have
contributed to building numerous water infrastructures that have helped control flooding, serve
cities and irrigation schemes, raise rural income and ensure food security. In the region, just as in the
world at large, water problems have now mostly shifted to institutional and policy issues that appear
to have a critical bearing on both the quality of management and the governance of water. Water
resources are now recognized as being crucial to life, economic activities, and sustainable
development. Sharing and managing this scarce resource in the region, while ensuring basic social
equity and environmental sustainability, has become a central societal issue that demands skills that
go beyond traditional engineering training and include ecology, human geography, anthropology,
economy and political sciences.

As Arab countries begin to acknowledge the centrality of institutional and governance issues in water
management, it becomes crucial to respond to this need by training young leaders in the field of
water resource management, as well as professionals with a multi-disciplinary approach (for example
associating agronomy or rural engineering with social science and management). While such
perspectives can be passed on to water decision-makers through capacity building – like the training
courses organized by the AWA on issues such as water governance, water demand management, or
water diplomacy – it is also important to increase efforts at the level of academia by supporting the
training of students in interdisciplinary Master's and PhD programs relating to water as well as to
social sciences and management in general.

Acknowledging this challenge, the Academy, in collaboration with several partners in the region and
at international levels, is extending support to PhD students interested in addressing and studying
the institutional, social, economic/financial and policy dimensions of water management.

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• AWA PhD Program Call
• AWA Scholarship Program Application 

 The deadline for applications is 20 April 2010. Only applications postmarked on or before this date
will be accepted.