Regional workshops on “Irrigation revitalization in the Asia & Pacific region: Technical approach and future roadmaps” from 28 February to 2 March and “Strengthening regional capacity for irrigation revitalization and agriculture water governance: a capacity development agenda for Asia and Pacific” were held from 4 to 6 March 2013 at Nanjing, China. The workshops were jointly organized by the FAO and the Chinese National Committee on Irrigation and Drainage (CNCID).  The workshop was opened with the welcome speeches by Mr. Yan Guanyu, President Gao Zhanyi, Mr. Hao Zhao, and Mr. Thierry Facon of FAO and was attended by 56 participants from 20 countries (Australia, China, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, The Netherlands, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam). Most of the participants were from ICID National Committees.

The objectives of the irrigation modernization workshop were to review the  users experience on irrigation modernization (in particular using MASSCOTE applications) in the region, redesign – propose improvements and new elements for the next generation of methodologies (MASSCOTE 2.0), and strategize  and discuss relevance of national guidelines for transforming the irrigation sector, including policy, strategy and investments. A field visit to Gaoyou irrigation district was organized on 3 March to see the on-farm water distribution works.

The objectives of the 2nd workshop were -  to assess capacity building needs, demands, review capacity offers and gaps to be filled to support the future revitalizing agenda on irrigation, define regional capacity building proposals for effective agriculture water governance, discuss a process for accreditation and criteria’s for certification of reference centers and helping to disseminate those when useful, and draw a joint roadmap to answer to capacity building requirements for implementing effectively the irrigation revitalization strategy.

The FAO is also in the process of establishing Asia/pacific network of centers of excellence and knowledge center in interested countries to strengthen irrigation modernization and improved agriculture water management. In Central Asia in particular, a regional initiative targeted at effective agricultural water governance for food security and livelihood improvement will be established. Any organization may apply to be part of the network of knowledge centers with the recognition of all, or an identifiable part, of its knowledge offer for designation to support capacity development for strengthening of agriculture water management and its governance.

During the workshop, President Gao met with the representatives of National Committees of Indonesia, Malaysia, Uzbekistan and also held discussions with the participants from Tajikistan and Vietnam with the possibility of reactivating their National Committees as well as inviting the country delegations for the First World Irrigation Forum (WIF1) to be held at Mardin, Turkey.

Speech by Mr. Yan Guanyu