Abstract

The first and highly successful IDRC-Carleton University Forum on Access to Water in the Eastern Mediterranean was held in Ottawa in Fall 1998, and its results will soon be published in print and online as part of IDRC's Focus Collection. This grant will help finance a second IDRC-Carleton University Forum on Access to Water in the Eastern Mediterranean. While the theme of the first forum was water balances in the region, the theme of the second will be modern and traditional methods of irrigation, since irrigation accounts for 65 to 90% of water demand in the region. The timing and locale of the second workshop have been determined by the fortuitous circumstance that the lead person at Carleton University, Dr Ozay Mehmet, is on sabbatical for the academic year 1999-2000 at Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Farmagusta, North Cyprus. EMU has offered to cover all local costs (accommodations, meals, local travel, field trips) if IDRC can provide international travel costs for a meeting in (or before) April 2000. As with the first workshop, specialists will be invited from each country in the region, but they will be appearing as individual scientists, not as national representatives. Special efforts will be made to attract scholars from Syria, which was missing during the first workshop.

Recipient Institution(s)