Speech of Prof.Dr.Abdalla Abdelsalam Ahmed

Your Excellency, Mr Chen Lei, Minister of Water Resources of China,Mr.erdelen, Assistant Director General of the UNESCO, Mr. Singh, Director and Representative of UNESCO Office to DPR Korea, Japan, Mongolia, PR of China and Republic of Korea.
Honourable Prof. Kuang Shangfu, Director of IRTCES,
Honourable Mr Fang Maotian, Secretary General of the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO,
Respectable Prof. Hu Chunhong, Secretary General of IRTCES,
Honourable Representative of Sudan Embassy in China, Mr. Mohamed

Respectable guests and dear participants from all over the world, my friends from China especially from IRTCES staff, today is a special day for IRTCES and for us who come all along from far distance to join our Chinese colleagues to participate in Workshop on the Integrated River Basin Management, July 27 to August 3, 2009 and the IRTCES Silver Jubilee celebration. I am delighted and happy to speak to you as a member of the Advisory Council of IRTCES representing the Arab region and on behalf of Africa as African. We do appreciate the role of IRTCES in all fields related to erosion and sedimentation worldwide and the efforts it conducted to enhance the development in this important field. The contribution of IRTCES in the area of research and training has been widely recognized and its good reputation is well known. We, in the Arab and African regions, benefited a lot from IRTCES research and training facilities, as our regions suffer from erosion and sedimentation problems and their consequences. We are looking forward to have a close collaboration between IRTCES and our regions, which requires genuine and actual steps from both sides.

Ladies and Gentlemen,Let me take this opportunity in such a special occasion to thank the Chinese Government and the Chinese People for their great efforts and help they are offering to the developing countries and Africa in particular. In this respect I would like to recall the Afro-Chinese Summit which was held in 2008, where China proved to be a true friend of Africa, not only by words but through real development projects to raise the continents people living standard and alleviate poverty without any political agenda.   

Ladies and gentlemen,In this respect, I would be pleased to take my country Sudan as an example. China historically built several bridges and highway roads throughout Sudan and recently, just last month June, 2009 an important project has been inaugurated (Hasahisa Bridge on the Blue Nile River) by his Excellency the President of Sudan.

Now China through one of its experts from the IWHR (Prof. Guo) is contributing to the Roseires Dam Heightening as a member of the Advisory Committee Board. Moreover, China recently completed in my country one of the largest Hydropower dam in Africa (12 Billion Cubic Meter and 1250 MW capacity) namely Merowe Dam on the Main Nile.In addition to the above development projects, China is our partner in the utilization of our oil resources through CNPC (Chinese National Petroleum Company). We do appreciate the Chinese contributions which help Sudan to reach the present level of oil production.

Ladies and Gentlemen,Working as a secretariat of the ISI under the umbrella of IHP of UNESCO; IRTCES contributes greatly to research and capacity building, not only within China but worldwide. The Arab and African regions are facing several challenges to deal with. The watershed erosion management and sediment transport in rivers and seasonal streams. We hope IRTCES gives the latter issue more attention in particular sedimentation in small dam reservoirs (Sudds). Moreover, we are looking forward for real collaboration between the research institutes in the Arab and African regions and IRTCES. Speaking of my personal experience, I visited China several times and each time I find China in excellent progress.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like here to thank the Sponsors of this important event; namely Ministry of Water Resources of China, International Sediment Initiative (ISI) – UNESCO –IHP and the World Association for Sedimentation and Erosion Research (WASER).  Last and not least I wish all success and prosperous future for IRTCES and the Chinese people.

Once again I thank the organizers of the IRTCES Jubilee Celebration for giving me this opportunity to address this important gathering.

Thanks and Al salamo Alaukom wa Ramato Alla wa Barakato.