IWRA World Water Congress 2008 Montpellier France
8. Capacity Building
Author(s): Tadeusz Malkiewicz
Registration No. 267
CURRICULUM
VITAE
PERSONAL DETAILS:
Surname : Malkiewicz
First Names : Tadeusz , Thad
Date Of
Birth : 11 March 1951
Place Of Birth : Bogatynia, Poland
Citizenship : South African, Polish
Home Address
: 1205 Mountain Av
Keyword(s): Capacity Building , Water Management , Water for
Growth and Development
Article: PDFAbstractCAPACITY BUILDING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AS THE
AFTERMATH OF NATURAL DISASTERS
Mr Tadeusz Malkiewicz ,Department of Water Affairs and
Forestry , Pretoria, South Africa
On 26 December 2004, an earthquake below the Indian Ocean triggered a
tsunami that affected among others India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Seychelles, Maldives, Somalia
and Tanzania. Sri Lanka, despite its distance from the quake, was devastated by the disaster – with more than 30
000 people dead and almost three quarters of its coastline scoured.
The South African Water Sector
(SAWS) was to offer assistance to two of these tsunami-stricken countries : Sri Lanka and Maldives. More
specifically, the aim was to achieve the following :
1) To enable the accelerated and more efficient roll-out of
donor funds in tsunami-stricken countries for the obvious benefit of communities which have lost so much;
2)
Strive to leave behind more effective and efficient water management governance structures in those countries where
we were involved, on our departure; and
3) To build/improve bilateral relations between South Africa and the
relevant countries, especially in the area of water management.
It has been our policy throughout the process
that we can not and will not prescribe to these countries on how they should progress matters. We have been aiming
to share our experience and insights which the SAWS has gained over the past 1,5 decades during our endeavours
to improve our inherited water management problems, inter alia utilising relatively large amounts of donor funds. Our
main focus has been on empowering and building capacity.
We should also maybe mention that, whilst the
initial objectives of the SAWS reconnaissance teams were strongly focused on the 1st SAWS objective mentioned
above, our actual involvement in both countries ( Sri Lanka and Maldives ) was very much in respect of the 2nd
objective. This shift in focus was requested by the water management sectors of those countries.
As a link to
the main theme of the recent 4th World Water Forum held in Mexico in March 2006 `` Water for Growth and
Development``, it was decided in September 2006 to implement a pilot project at Hambantota ( Sri Lanka). The
W4G&D represents the latest in international best practice and forms the basis of considerable recent breakthroughs
and positive developments in SAWS.