SADIEau: towards a pan-African Water Information System for better integration of regional knowledge in local water management.
SADIEau (Système Africain de Documentation et d'Information sur l’Eau - The African System for Documentation and Information on Water) is based on the networking of different Regional Resource Centres to pool and exchange information on water.
These centres constitute information relays, called Focal Points, between users, the specialised local, national, and international bases.
SADIEau is destined for all players in the field of Water: government administrations, basin organisations, regional authorities, water distributors, water treatment service operators, major public developers, engineering offices, irrigation organisations, NGOs, research organisations, and training centres, etc.
A prefiguration phase focused on the development of the tool and the development of the network of partners. Afterwards, 12 focal points were involved in the project’s first pilot phase. The webportal www.sadieau.org opened in january 2009 feeding with 60 news, 200 documents, 100 links.
The project is to be extended with 10 new SRH for a 2nd pilot phase.
IOWater was responsible for assisting the RAOB (African network of basin Organisation) which was the consortium leader, via his secretariat the OMVS(Organisation for the development of the Senegal River) in conducting the SADIEau project, providing organisational and technical assistance. IOWater was a member of the project's steering committee and, accordingly, it was involved in all decisions.
It was responsible, with all the partners, for looking for focal points, and it organised and was associated in their “evaluation” in terms of technicality, IT equipment, and desire to be involved in SADIEau.
IOWater is more specifically responsible for developing the information system (the SADIEau portal including a knowledge base), for offering a document management system with focal points, and for getting all the project’s partners to work together. The IOWater team was involved in the implementation of the pilot phase (use of the portal through focal points), in particular through training initiatives in close collaboration with the CREPA, the OMVS, pSEau, and WEDC.