event 14 May 2018

Nexus Workshop on Human Capacity Building // European/German Nexus Case Studies in Collaboration with/UN-ESCWA in Beirut

By Nisreen Lahham and Maarit Thiem. The Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme identified the need to capacitate representatives of sector ministries, planning ministries, authorities and members from relevant civil society as key for advancing the application of an integrated planning and policy approach. A workshop together with UN-ESCWA focussed on the challenge of Human Capacity Building.

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https://unsplash.com/photos/5QgIuuBxKwM (C) Headway / Unsplash

Human Capacity Development is thus one of the four main pillars that define the core tasks of the EU/BMZ funded Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme. Knowledge of the Nexus concept and information management are essential in order to bring the Nexus debate from the academic sphere into development practice; hence, supporting regional stakeholders to implement the Nexus approach at the national ministerial and regional policy level is key.

The Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme collaborated with the United Nations-Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA). The ESCWA Project reinforces the League of Arab States’ (LAS) Regional Initiative on the Water, Energy and Food Nexus, which was launched under the auspices of the Arab Ministerial Water Council and Arab Ministerial Council for Electricity in 2015 and has been supported since its inception by GIZ and ESCWA.

The Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme and UN-ESCWA were enthusiastic to link up their ongoing nexus activities in the field of capacity building with the aim to foster knowledge exchange, improved coordination and coherence in the Arab region.

The Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme contributed to the “Final Regional Policy Workshop on the Water-Energy Nexus”, organised by UN-ESCWA in Beirut/Lebanon from 11-12 December 2017 with a session on Nexus learning experiences from Germany and Europe. The main objective of the training session was to provide insights into European/German Nexus experiences with applying the Nexus approach.

41 high level representatives from the water and energy sectors of 14 Arab countries were provided with information on the main legislative and institutional instruments for Nexus coordination in Germany, on examples on how the existing legislative and institutional instruments can be implemented, through the following case studies: European Fertilizer Ordinance Amendment, Groundwater Management in the Hessian Ried and Pumped-storage plants in Thuringia.

The Nexus training provided a perfect platform for experience sharing between countries of the MENA Region. It was conducted in an interactive manner, consisting of short inputs followed by intensive group discussions, so that participants could exchange their experiences with the other workshop participants.

The participants’ feedback showed a high interest in conducting this training at national level in different Arab countries with a focus on comparing the German/European governance system with that of Arab countries.

The material is available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic.

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