IOWater - International News

50 The News N° 28 - February 2018 FRom one conTinenT To anoTHeR THE MEDITERRANEAN Palestine Support to the development of sanitation For several years, the West Bank has expe- rienced strong growth in infrastructure dedicated to sanitation and urban wastewater treatment. With funding from international cooperation, many communities now have modern infrastructure that meets the new regulatory requirements. This is particularly the case in the Municipalities of Ramallah (Al-Tireh), Al-Bireh, Jericho, Nablus, Taybeh. Other projects are in progress. They concern Tubas-Tayasir and the big city of Hebron. With the support of the Adour Garonne Water Agency, the International Office for Water has conducted a skills development program adapted to the new needs of Palestinian staff, as these projects are progressing. The training courses gathered staffs from municipalities, water syndicates and the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA). This program, initiated in 2012, allowed studying with local stakeholders the waste- water treatment processes, from their conception to their completion. A comple- mentary program for developing the skills of the operating staff helped to take control of the facilities. The training provided combined phases in Palestine, then in France at the IOWater’s Training Center (NWTC) where the operators came to be trained on educational units during courses tailored to suit the local context. The last support phases dealt with the monitoring of construction works and the acceptance of new installations. The Adour Garonne Agency has been able, through the financing of the program, to provide the assistance that was lacking in the context of conventional financing of investment programs. In 2017, the Rhone-Mediterranean-Corsica Water Agency, taking over the institutional component of this cooperation with Palestine, and in the continuity of the Adour-Garonne Agency’s action, decided to continue this cooperation by giving priority to the reuse of treated wastewater in agriculture and the recovery of sludge, taking into account sanitary and public health aspects. This cooperation is part of a process of streng- thening the links between the West Bank water staffs and developing a real knowledge of the local technical context. 4 Practical phase in Jerich Practical training in Limoges As part of its program for developing the skills of its staff based in Qatar and Oman, Suez entrusted the IOWater’s National Water Training Center (NWTC) with the realization of three training sessions on the techniques of drinking water production and wastewater treatment in Doha and in Muscat in 2017. These training sessions follow those previously conducted in Dubai and Jordan. The desalination issue was particularly addressed in order to adapt the training content to the local context. 4 Middle East Realization of training sessions for Suez The Muscat Desalination Plant (Oman) www.iowater.org The water world on the Web