6 May 2010
University expertise to inform water policy in Malawi
Photo call: 4pm on Friday, May 7th, at the UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, University of Dundee. A Malawian delegation will be completing training exploring how water policy can be improved in their country.
University of Dundee expertise may soon be helping to ensure that some of the world’s most impoverished people have access to a clean, life-saving, supply of water.
A senior delegation from the Privatisation Commission of Malawi are visiting the University’s UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science to receive specialist training in water regulation and hydrological issues, which will help inform future policies to improve the health of economic wellbeing of 15 million Malawians.
The week-long training programme concludes on Friday, May 7th, when the delegates meet with representatives of the UNESCO Centre to discuss how the partnership can be taken forward in future. They have already demonstrated an interest in sending delegates to Dundee’s Water Law, Water Leaders programme, an initiative focused on developing a new generation of water leaders to effect locally devised and locally driven solutions to water issues.
Professor Patricia Wouters, Director of the UNESCO Centre, said the training was specifically tailored with the Malawian situation in mind, and builds on the framework provided by core teaching at the Centre.
'We are immensely pleased to be working with the Privatisation Commission of Malawi to provide expertise to enable them to improve the provision of clean water to everyone in their country,' she said. 'Our role is to help Public Private Partnerships in the water sector to operate at an optimum level in Malawi.'
'This will be done through water sector regulation and improvements to water service delivery in Malawi. In particular, the work that the Commission hopes to carry out focuses on the provision of sufficient water supply for Blantyre and Lilongwe, the two largest - and rapidly growing - urban centres in Malawi.'
Malawi is among the world's least developed and most densely populated countries, with low life expectancy and high infant mortality rates. Improving the supply and quality of water is essential to efforts to enhance the nation’s health and prosperity.
Dundee’s world-renowned expertise in water management leads many foreign governments and international agencies to seek out their assistance. Earlier this year, the Republic of Tajikistan’s ambassador to the UK visited to find out how changing policies could be helped to aid the development of the landlocked Central Asian country and its neighbours.
The Privatisation Commission of Malawi, established by an Act of Parliament, aims to privatise public enterprises in a prudent, transparent and efficient manner that best serves the interests of Malawians.
Delivery of the training and logistics was undertaken by the UNESCO Centre with support from the Centre for Energy Petroleum and Mineral Law Policy (CEPMLP). Both CEPMLP and the Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science are based within the University’s Graduate School of Natural Resources Law, Policy and Management.
Dundee’s UNESCO Centre aims to assist national governments and international agencies in meeting the UN’s Millennium Development Goal of achieving 'water for all', and to develop innovative models and practices for integrated water resources management to help prevent conflict and alleviate poverty across the globe.
It offers the world’s only postgraduate degree programme in international and comparative water law and policy, and is committed to excellence in both teaching and research.
For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
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