The Arab Regional Unit is organizing an Advance Training Course on:
"Advanced tools for sustainable Water resources management and environmental protection" in Egypt.

There will be some grants to support young researchers who are working in the water and environment from the Arab World. If you are interested, please send a brief one page CV to:

aru@waysnet.org

Arab Regional Unit Report

The first Arab WAYS meeting was held on 28th November 2005 at Bibliotheca Alexandrina – Egypt. The WAYS 1st Arab Regional Meeting was financially supported by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and a Grant for Scientific Meeting held in developing countries from the academy of sciences for the developing countries TWAS, Trieste, Italy.

Based on the formulation of WAYS, its recommendation of having regional units of WAYS around the world and the recommendations of the first WAYS meeting held in Marrakech in December 2004, Dr. Alaa El-Sadek President of the Arab World Academy of Young Scientists kicked off this meeting in order to establish the Arab Unit that will contribute to capacity building of young Arab researchers in a gender sensitized environment. This ARU is the first established regional unit for the WAYS.

After the conclusion of the participants presentations, the participants came up with several project proposals. The participants were divided into primary working groups according to their project(s) of interest, working under the regional coordinator’s supervision.

Announcements:

• The Arab WAYS regional office will be located at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt.
• The launch of the Arab WAYS regional office activities as from November the 29th, 2005.
• The Executive Officers of Arab WAYS are as follows:

Arab WAYS President: Dr. Alaa El-Sadek
Arab WAYS Regional Coordinator: Dr. Hani Sewilam
Arab WAYS Secretary General: Ms.Nermeen Youssef
Bibliotheca Alexandrina Representatives: Ms. Amani Massoud and Ms. Omneya Darwish.

Recommendations:

• Implementing the “3-D Brain-Gain” program (Back-Home, Bridge and Networking). Dissemination of the program through Arab media to attract local organizations to support the implementation process.
• Preparing and submitting the proposals for the decided seven project ideas.
• Arab WAYS should be participating in the events of establishing the new regional units as a key player. The main objectives should be disseminating the experience of establishing Arab WAYS and advertising the regional activities.
• Arab WAYS should organize an international conference to present the scientific work and current projects/projects idea of Arab WAYS. Candidates from potential funding agencies should be invited as keynotes speakers. The didactic objectives of presentations should be highlighting the essential needs for fund.
• Participating in forthcoming TWAS events (e.g. arrange to have sessions in the upcoming TWAS conferences).
• Proposing and signing MOU with potential organizations and strenghthening the links with those organizations.