African Water Development Report 2006 - United Nations Economic ...

African Water Development Report 2006the resource and integrating or balancing it withdemand but also embracing the new concept ofintegrating it across sectors, integrating its use,integrating demand for it, integrating it with theenvironment and integrating it with the people.Currently, progress in science and technology,rising demands for development in Africancountries and the ecological or environmentalchallenge of our age requires an increased numberof highly trained water experts, but these arenot widely available in Africa. Massive capacitybuilding is therefore needed to produce maleand female water professionals highly skilledin IWRM principles and practices. At present,most sub-Sahara African countries lack the academicpotential and infrastructure to establishadvanced postgraduate training of a duration andintensity necessary to produce the skills neededfor sustainable water resources development andmanagement. The UN Water Africa and AM-COW are therefore called upon to find ways ofestablishing such training through internationalcooperation.development on sound policies, strategies andplanning, taking into account the interface andlinkage of these resources with national socioeconomicdevelopment perspectives. Doing thisentails ensuring the interplay of the nexus issuesof population, environment and food securitywith the crosscutting elements of water resources,capacity building and gender issues. The exerciseshould seek to harmonize and reconcile sectoralobjectives with national development targets atthe macro-economic level.As for the present African Water DevelopmentReport itself, it should be noted that regional andsubregional syntheses were difficult to make owingto lack of homogeneity of the presentationsin the national reports, especially as regards theuse of indicators and references. It is thereforerecommended that for subsequent editions ofthe Report the UN Water Africa should establisha data preparation programme with specialemphasis on leading indicators and their definitionsas well as reference standards.The sum up is recognizing the strong need toharness and put into productive use Africa’sland and water resources potentials and basing370