Project presentation

View the Charter of Partnership

Potential themes

According to the conclusions of the November 2001 Addis Ababa Regional Workshop on "research for sustainable water resources in east African Rift valley", and the exchanges during the January 2005 preparatory mission in each of the participating countries, some common problems have been identified concerning groundwater resources in the Rift valley. They deal with quantitative (recharge, modelling, transfer, etc.) and qualitative (pollution, salinization, etc) aspects of groundwater resources. A non restrictive list of these problems is:

• Evaluation of the groundwater recharge specifically in volcanic zones
• Geochemistry of the groundwater with two major items: salinization (chlorine) and fluoride
• General modelling of the groundwater behaviour and relationships with surface water
• Impact of the anthropic activities, specifically all issues related to pollution in peri-urban areas

Participating research institutions

The project purpose is to boost the scientific knowledge of water cycle in the East-African Rift region, in order to reach a resources integrated management. Universities and dedicated institutes of the three countries shall work jointly on the fundamental topics of the water-related regional issues. This project comes after the workshop held from 26 to 29 November 2001 in Addis Ababa (Regional workshop on research for sustainable water resources in East African Rift Valley, November 26-29, 2001, Addis Abeba) , during which the project principle was adopted as well as the research orientations.

The research institutions specialised in underground water resources so far invited are:

• Addis Ababa University - Department of Geology and Geophysics; the Ethiopian Science and Technology Commission (ESTC) which plays a co-ordination part in the research domain, particularly in international co-operation issues
• the CERD - Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches de Djibouti
• Nairobi University - Department of Geology

The scientific community of each participating country will compose its research teams. Other institutions may take part to the project, provided they are capable.

The project will put at the disposal of the research teams some investing and functioning means, and will facilitate know-how and knowledge acquisition through searchers education and workshops and seminars realisation.
In return, the research teams will provide a scientific research work which will have to be legitimated by publications in specialised journals.

Starting the project

CIFEG is the project operator and will assume its administrative functioning (steering committees, scientific committees, reporting to the French Ministry of foreign affairs, etc.), organising the whole tasks, including the logistic ones. Moreover CIFEG plays a part - when necessary - easing the relations between all partners, watches over the development of relations with French universities, laboratories and dedicated institutions. CIFEG organises the student travels to laboratories, seeking for their most efficient harmonisation with the research schedule.

At the beginning of the project, CIFEG shall prepare a charter of partnership that will state the project objectives, establish the general operating rules, the procedures of foreign students reception, etc. and will indicate agreement rules in order to settle the practical aspects of the project. This charter will be presented and discussed during the launching meeting.
After that initial step, bilateral agreements will be settled between CIFEG and each partner. These agreements will state precisely the financing procedures intended for research projects operating costs, grant attributions, travel expenses, etc. They shall be thoroughly discussed with each participating institution as their approval is essential to allow the participation in the project.

The Steering Committee is composed of one representative from the French Co-operation, one representative of the French scientific community and two representatives of the countries concerned by the project. The first member of each national delegation will be chosen among the political decision-makers involved in water management; the second one will act for the scientific community.

The secretarial work of the Steering Committee is devoted to CIFEG.

The recommendations of the Steering Committee are compelling for the research teams.

The Scientific Consultative Committee gathers 5 (five) members, permanent or not, representing the international scientific community; they are proposed by the Facilitator and designated by the Steering Committee. It will give the Steering Committee its opinion on the scientific quality of the programmes proposed by the project teams, on their progression and the results achieved.

Research activities

Tenders for research proposals will be made in February 2005, all linked with the coherent management of underground and surface water. Proposals shall include:

• a research work programme
• an assessment of the technical means brought together
• an assessment of the budget necessary for the fulfilment of research works, including equipment and related functioning expenses
• a partnership proposal

Research activities will be led mostly at universities and research institutions of the three countries and will have a regional bearing. Searchers involved in research programmes will be asked to work in the laboratories of neighbouring countries.

Thus each national team will receive searchers from one or both neighbouring countries. Topics will be treated at a regional level, i.e. taking into account the data from the neighbour countries. Such an approach will lead every one towards excellency in specific domains (for instance peri-urban pollution, recharge in semi-arid zones, etc.). This regional approach, with the participation of administrations in charge of water, will allow to strengthen inter-state dialog in the field of water resources management.

Partnerships with French universities or research institutions will be implemented so that some South universities can benefit from the scientific support and equipment they might need to bring their works to a successful issue.

The Scientific Consultative Committee will evaluate and comment the project proposals, and give its position about the proposals to be kept. The Steering Committee will examine the CSC recommendations prior to the projects acceptance or re-direction.

Priority will be given to the programmes joining teams from at least two countries. Searchers from each of the three countries will have to make part of their research work in the partner countries (during probably three or four months per year), and in French research centres as well.

Seminars
During the project life-time, seminars will be organised. The searchers will present their results in order to create synergies between the diverse topics studied and make all the possible so that the results obtained by the ones benefit the others. Throughout the seminars, one topic will concern the publishing policy with an effort to target efficiently the specialised journals.

Workshops
The experts participating to the Committees will be asked to animate some workshops focussed on very dedicated lectures.

Bibliographic application on the East African Rift themes

Bibliographic application concerning the existing publications on geosciences topics in the East African Rift will be compiled and put at disposal on a server. This tool will allow on-line documentary search and will be directed to the whole scientific community. This aplication will use geosciences topics crossing with geographical data.

Communication and project promotion

Communication is a mandatory step for any scientific research; it is indeed a warranty of quality. Therefore searchers will be requested to make their scientific results public. This publicity will be made throughout seminars and workshops and also via papers presented in specialised journals acknowledged by the international scientific community. The orientated communication will centre on three themes:

• scientific communication. It is the usual issue of research surveys. The research teams of the participating countries will have to promote their works through scientific vectors, i.e. via specialised journals recognised by the scientific community.
• the reference communication. It aims at scientists and also at water specialists. CIFEG will publish a monograph presenting all the results obtained during the project time-life. The volume prepared at the end of the project will be disseminated to African universities, some European laboratories and to the administrations concerned with water
• open communication. It will be done via a web site and shall present the project evolution and the results in progress.

Project assessment

The project implementation and results first assessment will be done halfway. The second one will take place at the end of the project.