MENA NWC Founders Committee Convenes in Washington, D.C. and Rabat, Morocco

Summer 2013 Issue #2

MENA NWC Update Middle East and North Africa Network of Water Centers of Excellence

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :

The Founders Committee has been hard at work this spring. The Committee held its first meeting in Washington, D.C. from March 18-20 and then continued its work in Rabat, Morocco from June 11-12, where they were hosted by the International Institute for Water and Sanitation at the National Office for Electricity and Potable Water (ONEE-IEA).

The Founders Committee’s mandate is to guide the establishment of MENA NWC and ensure a smooth transition to the operational phase. Over the course of its two meetings, the Committee discussed the Network’s governance structure, fundraising strategy, and discussed a draft of the MENA NWC Strategic Business Plan 2014-2018. After careful consideration, the Committee decided to register the Network in United States. The Interim Management Unit (IMU) made presentations on the Network’s research programs and capacity development/knowledge exchange initiatives. The Committee unanimously selected Muwaffaq Saqqar as Chair and Harvey Perlman as Vice Chairman.

Following the March meeting in Washington, the

University of Nebraska hosted the Committee at its Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute. Committee members discussed the Institute’s research, education and policy initiatives and explored areas for collaboration.

The Founders Committee will meet next in Stockholm, Sweden in September 2013. In addition to discussing Network maters, they will present the MENA NWC at a side event at the Stockholm International Water Institute’s (SIWI) World Water Week and initiate partnerships between MENA NWC and representatives of other entities.

MENA NWC Founders

Committee Convenes 1

New Small Grants Program

Announced 2

Tips for Writing a Winning

Proposal 3

MENA NWC Business Planning

Continues 4

Capacity Development Task

Force Forms 5

Update on Network Research

Programs 5

Pictured from left to right: Hady Amr, Chairman Muwaffaq Saqqar, Jill Shaunfield Smail, Manar Fayyad, Vice Chairman Harvey Perlman, Thameur Chaibi and Samir Bensaid

Founders Committee Members

Hady Amr, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for the Middle East, U.S. Agency for International Development

Samir Bensaid, Director General, International Institute for Water and Sanitation, National Office for Electricity and Potable Water (ONEE-IEA), Morocco

Thameur Chaibi, Head of Department of Rural Engineering, National Institute for Research in Rural Engineering, Water, and Forestry (INRGREF), Tunisia

Manar Fayyad, Professor, Department of Chemistry, The University of Jordan, Jordan

Harvey Perlman, Chancellor, The University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Muwaffaq Saqqar, Water and Environment Consultant Engineer, Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development, Kuwait

Jill Shaunfield Smail, Science and Technology Advisor, Bureau of Near East Affairs, U.S. Department of State

New Small Grants Program Announced

MENA NWC Update Page 2

In May the MENA NWC released the Annual Program Statement for a new, exciting small grants program. The Young Water Scientist Partnerships (YWSP) Small Grants Program stimulates collaboration between the Centers’ young water research scientists and rewards innovative thinking to solve water problems. The small grants program complements the Policy, Research and Development (PR&D) grants which are larger in size and scope and longer in duration. Technical Scope. YWSP small grant projects aspire to make a concrete impact in the water sector. Research projects must address a policy, operational, technical, or managerial issue that is identified by stakeholders in government, business, NGOs or civil society. They must also address one or more of MENA NWC’s priority research areas: water use efficiency and productivity, groundwater, non-conventional water, water/energy/food nexus, and water supply and sanitation. Eligibility. The small grants program is open to full-time or part-time employees of MENA NWC Centers between the ages of 21 and 35 (Please note, a forthcoming modification will increase the age of eligibility to 40). Proposals must be submitted by two research scientists from two different Centers. In

exceptional circumstances, the program will accept proposals with up to three scientists. Evaluation Criteria. The review panel will evaluate the proposal’s technical merit, qualifications of the research team, relevance and likely impact of the research and potential to create and share relevant knowledge. Funding. A funding pool of US $350,000 is available for

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small grants under this program. Research projects funded under this program may range in size from $10,000 to $50,000, with most projects anticipated at the lower range. Applicants are encouraged to seek funding/co-financing in cash and in-kind from external sources, such as MENA NWC Centers, utilities, governments, businesses, civil society organizations, and similar entities.

MENA NWC Thematic Partnerships

The Network’s thematic areas and related research

priorities include:

Water Use Efficiency and Productivity

Groundwater

Nonconventional Water

Water/Energy/Food Security Nexus

Water Supply and Sanitation

Photo courtesy of SQU

YWSP OBJECTIVES

• Provide an opportunity for young water research scientists to develop research projects that they can manage to enhance their professional development

• Foster scientific partnerships between young scientists across Centers within the Middle East and North Africa

• Develop and carry out creative and innovative activities that have a demonstrable impact on the water sector.

Researchers from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) collaborate on

field research in Oman.

The MENA NWC Policy, Research, and Development (PR&D) Grants Program Annual Program Statement (APS) has been open since August 2012. After receiving several proposals and following other proposals in progress, we have compiled some tips for improving PR&D research project proposals: 1. Be Innovative and Aim for Impact: Projects should connect with the day-to-day needs of real stakeholders. Consider more direct stakeholder engagement and more inventive approaches. 2. What is Your Basis for Research? In the State of the Science section we encourage you to present a compelling need for research on the subject, and establish a clear starting point for the research. Describe the current regional experience with the technology, management practice, technique, or policy. Focus on the current state of implementation rather than the underlying scientific theory. Highlight the impact of your research on the MENA region. 3. Deepen Stakeholder Engagement: Stakeholder involvement in the proposal is the best indicator that the project will meet real needs faced by end users. A number of proposals include plans to engage stakeholders during the project, which is a positive step. However, these stakeholders have not participated in the proposal stage, so it is unclear

whether the project meets a real need, or whether the stakeholders will actually participate. Provide letters from stakeholders, or relay conversations you have had with them. This is not mandatory, but it will set your proposal apart from others and demonstrate your commitment to stakeholder involvement. 4. Reduce the Cost Proposal Budget: Most budget requests have been on the high end of the allowable range. As stated in the revised APS, we encourage mid-range budgets. Most awards will be in the range of $400,000 to $450,000. 5. Expand Knowledge Sharing: A central goal of MENA NWC is to put science into action. For this grants program, knowledge sharing is as important as the research itself. Your

proposal should include active ways to engage peers, policy makers, practitioners, and the public in the flow of knowledge, in ways that will continue beyond the project. One of the best approaches is to get people talking about it, face-to-face and virtually. Include steps during the project, such as live or online training events or workshops, and other methods to keep the conversation going, such as online forums or communities of practice. 6. Involve Young and Women Researchers: In Modification #1 to the APS, we have added a section to the proposal template specifically to highlight the roles of young and women researchers. Please remember to submit all PR&D research proposals and correspondence to mena_nwc_grants@dai.com.

MENA NWC Update Page 3

Tips for Writing a Winning Proposal

CALL FOR PAPERS

The International Symposium on Emerging Pollutants in Irrigation Waters: Origins, Fate, Risks, and Mitigation welcomes abstracts for oral and poster presentations. The deadline for abstract submission has been extended to July 30, 2013. For more information, please visit the symposium’s website.

Participants at the Network’s Water and Sanitation Thematic Partnership meeting collaborate on research proposals.

MENA NWC Business Planning Continues

MENA NWC Update Page 4

Under the direction of the Acting Director Peter Reiss, the Interim Management Unit (IMU) is proceeding with a key component of the Network: the five-year business plan. As part of the business planning process, a team travelled to eleven MENA NWC Centers in February 2013. Through exhaustive interviews with Center Directors and technical staff the team gathered Center opinions on the role of the MENA NWC, regional partnerships and cooperation, capacity development, network governance and management, connections to the private sector and external donors, financial sustainability, knowledge sharing, and integrating research with water policies and strategies. The Centers reported the following to the business planning team: Role of the MENA NWC: All of the Centers expressed their support for creating the Network as an important means to enhance partnership and cooperation, exchange knowledge and experience, provide guidance and leadership, and help create powerful proposals to obtain funds from donors. Regional Partnerships and Cooperation: Productive partnerships and cooperation among Centers could be built on sharing regional expert databases, harmonizing existing initiatives or creating new initiatives of mutual interest,

Private Sector: A number of the Centers noted that they have had past interactions with the private sector and successful experiences from

this collaboration. Currently,

few of the Centers have substantive research partnerships with businesses. Donors. All of the Centers have successful interactions with a wide range of international donors. The Network is considered to be an important way to help Centers access more donor funds by developing communications and information sharing and by identifying options and approaches to access more funds. They agreed that donors prefer to support proposals that have a regional focus and include more than one Center. Networking and Knowledge Sharing: The majority of Centers indicated that they use seminars, workshops,

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training courses, webpages, and conferences to share information both inside and outside their Centers. A complete analysis of the Center’s responses were shared with the Founders Committee at the March 2013 meeting and were used to draft the MENA NWC Strategic Business Plan 2014-2018 which the Founders Committee discussed in June. Highlights of the five-year Business Plan will be shared in an upcoming issue of the MENA NWC Update.

Researchers from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) monitor a

crop experiment at the Oman Ministry of Agriculture.

In March 2013, the Founders Committee approved a capacity development program for the Network. The program will begin with a establishing a task force composed of a representative from each Center who will collaborate on a capacity development program. The specific roles of task force members will be to:

• Provide information on current capacity development programs each Center is involved in that can be compiled into a database to be shared with all Centers

• Review the capacity development program and curriculum designs and suggest ways to improve the designs

• Provide feedback on the effectiveness of the Network capacity development initiatives and share ideas for improving the capacity development initiatives

As part of the Business Planning trip in February 2013, Centers were asked

to prioritize specific performance and skill areas. The results of that ranking is presented in the table

below. The Capacity Development Task Force will take these results into account in their activities.

As a result of the hard work of researchers across the region, the Network’s research programs are gaining momentum. Under the Policy, Research & Development (PR&D) grants program, 12 research teams have formally submitted proposals. To date, the

Selection Committee has recommended two proposals for conditional award and several more proposals are scheduled for review. Since the program recognized a gap in proposals addressing the water/energy/food nexus, participants from five

Centers met in Doha, Qatar to develop proposals under this Thematic Partnership. The meeting was generously hosted by the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) and resulted in collaboration around two new proposals. As with the Water and

MENA NWC Update Page 5

Update on the Network’s Research Programs

Capacity Development Task Force Forms

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Update.Update.Update.Update.

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Performance and Skill Areas Ranking by

Centers for Capacity Development

Priority Proposed Performance / Skill Areas 1 Building profitable relationships with the private

sector

2 Writing winning proposals

3 Research project management

4 Research methods and technology

5 Organizational leadership

6 Innovative outreach, networking and knowledge sharing approaches

7 Building better working relationships with govern-ment policy makers

8 Human resource management

9 Management of research programs, center units and departments

10 Financial management

Workshop participants collaborate at a proposal writing and development training in Muscat, Oman in October 2012

Update on the Network’s Research Programs cont’d

MENA NWC Update Page 6

MENA NWC Centers

Participating centers include Bahraini, Israeli, Jordanian, Moroccan, Omani, Palestinian, Qatari and Tunisian centers, as well as international centers:

Arab Countries Water Utilities Association (ACWUA) Arabian Gulf University

Grand Water Research Institute, Technion Israel Institute of Technology (GWRI) International Institute for Water and Sanitation, National Office of

Electricity and Potable Water (ONEE-IEA) Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary Science Hassan II (IAV)

International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) International Center for Biosaline Research (ICBA) International Water Management Institute (IWMI) Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC)

National Center for Agricultural Research and Extension (NCARE) National Institute of Research for Rural Engineering, Water, and Forestry (INRGREF)

Qatar Energy and Environment Research Institute (QEERI) Qatar National Food Security Program (QNFSP)

Royal Scientific Society (RSS) Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) The University of Jordan (UJ)

Water and Environmental Studies Institute (WESI), An-Najah National University

For more information on the MENA NWC, please contact: John Wilson

Director of Technical Support Bureau for the Middle East USAID + 1 202 712 4633 jwilson@usaid.gov Peter Reiss

Chief of Party FABRI + 1 202 549 1387 peter_reiss@dai.com

Sanitation Thematic Partnership meeting in 2012, this meeting of the Water-Energy-Food Thematic Partnership proved to be a valuable opportunity for MENA NWC researchers to make new connections with each other and develop teams that otherwise may not have formed. The participants were enthusiastically engaged, offering creative suggestions and respectful, challenging feedback. In addition to the PR&D grants program, work is underway to finalize contracts with three research teams undertaking unsolicited research

projects. A team lead by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and joined by IAV, NCARE and INRGREF, is developing a map-based web platform that will estimate exploitable gaps in yield and water productivity in Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia that will be used to identify areas with greatest potential to increase food supply and water use efficiency. A second research team led by the California Institute of Technology, along with researchers from SQU and IAV, will conduct radar probing of coastal aquifers in Morocco and Oman to map the depth of the water table and water freshness with the objective of improving

water security in hyper-arid environments. Finally, a research team led by MEDRC, and joined by SQU and other partners in Kuwait and the US, will develop a forecasting system to warn desalination plant operators of algae blooms so that they can implement countermeasures to prevent disruptions in desalination plant operations. Finally, since the release of the Young Water Scientist Partnerships small grants APS in May 2013, one concept note has been submitted and other research teams are beginning to form.