After seven successful years, the WaSo project organised this concluding event. The event included a two-day open international conference (15-16 December 2020). Participants shared their results and good practices with WaSo fellows, colleagues and all interested in international development of water-society-climate related issues.
For conference recordings, please follow this link
Colombo, Sri Lanka, was the host city for the fifth IWA Water and Development Congress & Exhbition 1-5 December 2019 at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall. It brought together around 3000 participants from the water sector from 90 countries to discuss and plan for a sustainable future.
We decided to host a project meeting for the WaSo group during the congress, and participants from both WaSo Asia and WaSo Africa came together, focusing on the future of the project both in the coming year and a phase-II of the WaSo project.
Makerere University are currently organising and hosting a WaSo writeshop for their Master students and PhD fellows. The focus is to have joint manuscripts for publication of the various work that their fellows have done so far. They were joined by their WaSo partners from University of Juba, South Sudan, and University of Nairobi, Kenya.
Day 2: Delving into the critical reflections on the Conceptualisation and development of draft manuscripts for the Makerere WaSo fellows
At the end of the Writeshop participants had manuscripts and proposals for collaborative publications ready, and will reach out to colleagues that have been suggested to be co-authors.
The 2019 International Water Summer School was held at NMBU and USN 16 June – 6 July. 45 students from 12 countries participated in the course THT311 Water Resources Management and Treatment Technologies at NMBU from 17-27 June. The WaSo group left NMBU on 28 June to meet up with the WaSo PostDoc group from Bergen to participate in a course at University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) until their departure on 6 July.
On Monday 8 July 2019, Prof. Harsha Ratnaweera (NMBU) held a lecture at University of Nairobi on Particle removal in wastewater – Technological trends. The lecture was attended by about 50 people.
Three staff members from University of South-Eastern Norway performed seminars and supervision visit to UoJ and UoP during the last days of January 2019. At both universities 40-60 student and staff members joined the seminars with lectures on Genetics, Water and Environmental Sciences, as well as possibilities for future collaboration and exchange. In Jaffna, UoJ also invited for a very interesting field-trip to the Jaffna lagoon and a site for sea-cucumber harvesting. After lectures at both universities, there were fruitful discussions with staff and students about ongoing and planned research, and we aim at some joint activities within environmental research and education. Three Master’s students at UoP presented their thesis work and got supervision from Sæbø and Oredalen from USN:
Our thanks go to Prof. Sivashanthini Kuganathan and Dr. Balachandran Ketheesan at UoJ for their thorough planning and organizing during our visit to Jaffna. We are also very grateful to Prof. S.B.Weerakoon, Dr. Daham Dias and Dr. Shameen Jinadasa at UoP for all their concern, organizing and follow-up on all matters needed before and during our stay in Sri Lanka!
Water and Society (WaSo) program
Water and Society (WaSo) is an institutional Capacity-Building program in Water Management and Climate Change Adaptation in Selected Countries in Asia and Africa, funded by Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development (NORHED).
The University of Jaffna is a partner in this project and therefore there is a strong need to build institutional capacity within University of Jaffna to undertake policy and livelihoods relevant research on water, society and climate change adaptation from a cross-disciplinary and gender sensitive research perspective.
M.Phil. / Ph.D Research degree programs
Applications are invited from qualified persons for enrolment to Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) research programmes offered by the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Jaffna in the disciplines listed below.
Eligibility requirements
Please check http://grad.jfn.ac.lk/ and the link below for more details
https://sites.google.com/univ.jfn.ac.lk/fgs/research-programs?authuser=0
Medium: English
Scholarships
Waso project will support potential candidates with part time scholarships for MPhil and PhD programs and the scholarship opportunities are available throughout the year. Special scholarships are available for candidates from marginalized groups and female candidates.
For details, please contact
Dr. B. Ketheesan, Coordinator of WaSo Project of University of Jaffna
(Tel: +94 777194463, e-mail: kethees@eng.jfn.ac.lk )
Mr. Saliya Sampath, Secretary of WaSo Project of University of Jaffna
(Tel: +94 776993908, email: saliya@eng.jfn.com )
Seminar on Modern Water Supply Systems organized by the NORAD WaSo-Asia Project was successfully held on 7th April 2018 at the Hotel Kandyan Arts Residency, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka under the patronage of resource persons from the University of Peradeniya and Tetr-Tech Inc, USA.
The seminar was attended by about 75 participants ( 40% females) comprising of university academic staff of UoP and UJF, practicing engineers and managers in water supply sector, postgraduate students, research students and few undergraduate students.
This event was financially availed with the budgetary allocations under workshops, seminars as a dissemination activity of the NORAD WaSo-Asia project.
The seminar was opened by the welcome speech delivered by Prof.S.B.Weerakoon , followed by an address by the Head/Civil Engineering of the University of Peradeniya. The resource persons from Tetra-Tech and UoP shared their experiences with participants under the main topics of Water Supply and Treatment Status in Sri Lanka, Project Planning and Management, Design of Water Treatment Plants – Package Systems and their relative merits, Water Treatment & Process Engineering and Performance Management -Construction, CSU, O&M. The lectures delivered by the experienced practitioners were followed by active discussion sessions. The notes and the pdf files of presentations were shared among the participants. The seminar was extremely beneficial to the participants. 
From 14 November to the 19th participants from WaSo Africa and WaSo Asia gathered in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia for the second joint Annual project meeting. The meeting began with a 1-day seminar at Addis Ababa University, at which Dr. Jeilu Oumer, AVP and President responsible at the university and Prof. Yacob Atito welcomed the partners of the project at the university. Prof. Edward Kirumira followed with a presentation on “Strengthening water sector capacities and competences in Africa”. Prof. S.B. Weerakoon then talked about Synergies in South-South water partnerships, before Prof. Tore Sætersdal presented “Efforts to unite and consolidate efforts for better and fair water management”.
After the formal opening, the seminar then split into two parallel sessions. One focused on Social and political sciences, while the other focused on Engineering sciences and technology.
Social and political sciences presentations:
Engineering and technological presentations
The project group then travelled to the beautiful Bishoftu, where the project meeting commenced. A number of administrative and financial issues were discussed, and new tasks and responsibilities were assigned. Preparations for the WaSo Africa annual meeting with NORAD in Uganda was also a part of the meeting agenda.
The participants of the project meeting in Ethiopia wants to thank the partners at AAU for organizing the fruitful meeting!
WaSo Asia annual meeting was held from 1st to 4th July at the University College of Southeast Norway in Bø in Telemark, followed by the annual progress meeting with Norad in Oslo.
The main issues of the meeting were:
During the meeting, 2 sessions of training on how to become an ideal supervisor was conducted by Professor in mental health at USN Robert Bongaard. During these sessions we had the opportunity to go through the supervision guidelines made by the project, and got valuable inputs for a second version of these guidelines.
All the secretaries also had a joint secretary meeting during our time in Bø, where joint challenges and best practices were discussed. This is the first time all secretaries from both WaSo Asia and WaSo Africa met in person.
While the coordinators and some of the secretaries attended the meeting with Norad in Oslo, the Post Docs and the rest of the secretaries had a guided tour in Oslo, before joining the rest of the group for dinner in the evening.
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