It is time to take stock of the situation…
« Vocational training on water should be developed! »

The topics of education and capacity building were widely discussed during the recent World Water Forum in Korea and tangible progress has been achieved!

The International Network of Water Training Centers (INWTC), UNESCO, IOWater, ONEE (Morocco), 2iE (Burkina Faso), "Cap-Net," K-Water (Korea), the INBO Academy, the Youth Parliament for Water, GWP-Mediterranean were entrusted with the coordination, together with their many partners, of a dozen thematic or regional official sessions entirely devoted to this issue and that have required a wide preparatory mobilization for more than a year.

These sessions allowed addressing the topics of education of citizens on such issues as good water management, including young people and women, awareness of decision-makers or basic and continuing vocational training on water.

The training of staffs for the proper operation of water structures and facilities, funding for vocational training, strengthening or creation of specialized training centers, training of trainers and production of teaching materials, the specific training of staffs and partners of basin organizations, new communication tools... were discussed in depth and illustrated by the presentation of many very practical case studies.

As part of the regional process, a "Mediterranean" session allowed presenting educational projects ongoing in this region, and particularly the establishment of new national water training centers under, inter alia, the "AquaForMed" network. This session was honored by the presence of HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco.

The overall conclusions and recommendations of the debates were, for the first time in a World Water Forum, presented to the attending ministers, who welcomed the many contributions and efforts made by the regional and thematic processes.

On the themes of education and capacity building, these recommendations can be summarized as follows:

• Education and awareness on water and capacity development in water-related activities and programs at all levels are essential for reducing inequality and empowering the civil societies.
• Effective educational programs on water for women, children and youth are essential.
• It is important to foster the creation of water-related jobs and to enhance expertise in water management such as irrigation, aquaculture, hydropower, water supply and sanitation.
• Vocational training on water supported by sustainable financial mechanisms and creating and strengthening national and international water training centers should be promoted.
• It is necessary that multilateral cooperation programs on water, through international cooperation organizations, incorporate these ideas and promote the experimentation, evaluation and exchange of know-how on vocational training and higher education, including supporting cooperation networks between existing training and academic centers and new ones to be created.

These recommendations were the subject of the Daegu Gyeongju Implementation Commitment (DGIC), officially signed at the closing ceremony of the Forum by the 16 themes coordinators, including the International Network of Water Training Centers (INWTC) under theme T4.5 - "Education and Capacity Building”.

In the Forum Ministerial Declaration, the Ministers called upon nations to promote knowledge sharing and the development and deployment of scientific knowledge and innovative technologies, and to facilitate financing, investment, education, training and capacity building, particularly for developing countries.

In parallel to the official sessions of the Forum, in particular, a session on basic and continuing vocational training on water, organized at the French Pavilion, with the support of the French Water Partnership, enabled the presentation of a wide range of field experiments and direct exchanges between managers of training institutions and employers in the water sector.

The participants in these sessions particularly emphasized three points regarding basic and continuing vocational training in the water sector:

• Firstly, the staff members concerned are numerous and most of them are low-skilled employees and workers who must be provided with practical training to quickly improve the performance of their daily tasks related to the operation and maintenance of facilities of which they are responsible;
• Secondly, training is a full-time job that requires the intervention of specialized trainers and specific technical facilities suitable for a pedagogy oriented towards the actual practice of different jobs under real working conditions;
• Finally, training has a significant cost to be covered by permanent financing systems for investment and operation: the ideal situation would be that public and private employers systematically devote a sufficient percentage of their payroll to such purpose, and that donors make it a condition of their interventions and allocate a part of the physical investments to train the operational teams who will take care of the proper operation of the funded facilities.

Of course, implementation will take time, but a new impetus has been given and indisputably education, vocational training and capacity building were taken into account during the World Water Forum in Korea!

All the papers and photographs of these events, organized during the last World Water Forum in Daegu and Gyeongju from 12 to 17 April 2015, are available and can be downloaded on the website:
www.inwtc.org.

Pour nous contacter : secretariat@inwtc.org
Pour plus d’information : www.inwtc.org

eng.worldwaterforum7.org

INWTC – Permanent Technical Secretariat
C/o International Office for Water

21, rue de Madrid
75008 PARIS (FRANCE)
Tel. +33.1.44.90.88.60 Fax +33.1.40.08.01.45

E-mail : secretariat@inwtc.org

www.inwtc.org