Australia to Continue Support for Tackling Looming Water Crisis in Pakistan: Envoy

• Chairman IRSA Lauds Pakistan-Australian partnership on bilateral matters, especially the water sector.
• Australia’s Technical training proved important for IRSA Personnel.

ISLAMABAD: Australia will continue to support Pakistan to tackle and manage the looming water crisis, by drawing from Australian experiences and lessons learnt in water management.

Australian High Commissioner in Islamabad, Neil Hawkins, made these remarks during a visit to Indus River System Authority IRSA headquarters here on Saturday, and held meeting with Chairman IRSA, Asjad Imtiaz Ali, along with Members IRSA Balochistan and Sindh, Abdul Hammed Mengel and Zahid Hussain Junejo and Secretary IRSA, Muhammad Khalid Rana.

During the meeting issues related to water crisis of Pakistan, and provision of technical training to IRSA officials were discussed.

Speaking about Pakistan Australia water management collaboration, Hawkins said that he was very happy to learn about the success story of the collaborative project between the two countries and the way technical know-how was exchanged between the water experts to make the software project practical and implementable as much as possible.

In his remarks, Chairman IRSA stated that the Pakistan-Australian partnership on bilateral matters, especially the water sector, had strengthened manifold over the past 4-5 years, by various programmes and technical assistance offered by Australia.

Responding to Australian support, Chairman IRSA appreciated Australian government for the technical and financial assistance to develop the Water Apportionment Accord (WAA) Tool of IRSA.

The project had full backing and support of Ministry of Water Resources, IRSA, WAPDA, Irrigation departments of the Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. ACIAR and Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) from the Australian side were the main agencies involved in developing the WAA Tool.

It was now the Tool of choice of Pakistani water agencies and was being actively employed to aid in informed decision making for advance Kharif and Rabi seasonal planning, operation of reservoir and river network and distribution of the water resources of the Indus River System between the provinces as per policies of WAA 1991.

Furthermore, chairman stressed the importance of training for IRSA’s technical personnel through programmes of water and conflict management, etc and requested the HC to provide support in getting technical courses offered by Australian institutes.

Also, Secretary IRSA briefed Australian delegation on the working and operations of IRSA in managing the water resources of Indus River System as per policies of the WAA. He also informed about the joint collaborative project of WAA Tool development and the next step of mid-seasonal planning required to make it more effective and robust.

Chairman IRSA, Asjad Imtiaz Ali acknowledged that training was very important for IRSA personnel, which could be achieved, besides taking technical courses, by participating in regional conferences and seminars.

In his concluding remarks, Neil Hawkins assured full support of Australian government in managing the water resource of Pakistan more efficiently.

The overall effect of the WAA Tool had originated in the form of inter-provincial trust, where all the stakeholders had agreed on one analytical platform / tool to plan their operations. He said that his government and ACIAR were preparing a proposal for the further development of the WAA Tool as requested by IRSA.

Danielle Cashen, 1st Secretary Australian High Commission and Munawar Kazmi, Country Representative Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) also accompanied the HC during his visit to IRSA headquarters.