The National MEDWAYCAP Kick-off meeting in Tunisia has been organized by the Centre of Water Research and Technology. It was the occasion to inform about the project objectives and activities in Tunisia with the different associated partners. The workshop aimed also to make the connection with other projects active in the same field of non-conventional waters.  

The workshop started with an intervention with Pr. Kostantinos Plakas -project’s coordinator- about the project design and objectives as well as challenges that the MEDWAYCAP project will tackle in collaboration with all stakeholders. Pr. Latifa Bousselmi, project’s National Coordinator in Tunisia, expressed the importance of capitalizing past and ongoing experiences in order to be effectively able to valorize non-conventional water resources (NCWR) in sustainable way, and solve the identified challenges by the consortium. 

Then, project manager Safouen ALAYET presented the project to the different participants who were present in the room and the others who were connected by skype.

The workshop was divided in two parts: the first one was dedicated to the presentations of the projects that are active in the same field as the MEDWAYCAP project. Six project coordinators or partners presented their projects: NAWAMED, MENAWARA, AQUACYCLE, TRESOR, Sustain-COAST and PROSIM. A discussion was started on the impact of these projects and their important role to integrate non-conventional water resources NCWR into the water governance system and explores investment and business opportunities within the framework of the circular economy.

The second part of the workshop was dedicated to an activity that aims to identify the possible synergies between the different projects in the theme of non-conventional waters. This was followed by a working session in which each of the participants listed on separate tables the activities related to "capacity building", "on-site pilot implementation", "innovative solutions" and others. This will allow in a second step to (i) build a common agenda for further collaboration/exchange of expertise, (ii) identify innovative solutions to be considered in the MEDWAYCAP capitalization process as well as (iii) the knowledge transfer or decision support channels and platforms being built.

The CERTE MEDWAYCAP project team started a process of exchange about the challenges of the project at national and Mediterranean level, in order to feed the planned capitalization process. 

Participants contributed to the success of this workshop and engaged with MEDWAYCAP in this capitalization initiative.

Available the agenda and the presentation of the MEDWAYCAP project.