UNESCO Khartoum Office supported ASMR NGO and Ministry of Irrigation & Water Resources, the UNESCO Chair for Water Resources and Sheikan Insurance Company in the organization of the Floods and Coastal Engineering Conference from 6-7 February at the Main Hall of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research Building in Khartoum, Sudan.

The conference was attended by 86 participants including 38 women (44%), where the opening session was addressed by Eng. Fedaa Al Desogi, the Secretary General of Supreme Council for Urban Development, Mr. Abdelgadir Salih, the Programme Officer at UNESCO Khartoum Office, and other senior experts and engineers in Sudan. Dr. Abeer Khalid, the Director of ASMR NGO, also welcomed participants of the conference.

The technical sessions included presentations on Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems; Flood management and its future prospects in Sudan; Cities Resilience; Nile Protection at Tuti Island; Floods, Causes and Solutions vision; Floods and Torrents, Causes and Sustainable Solutions – focusing on Khartoum State Model; Sustainability and Risk Management for Floods; Reality of Response to Floods and Torrents; and Floods and Torrents Disasters Risk Management in Khartoum State. In addition, group work and training activities were organized mainly on the second day of the conference.

 

The main recommendations of the Conference are the followings:

1. Reviewing of the existing method for rain water management within various cities in Sudan.

2. Preparing for the coming autumn season by mobilizing the concerned authorities and preparing a strategic plan to face the situation in an effective and scientific way.

3. Working towards collecting the appropriate data for the decision-makers and achieving some work on the infrastructure to deal with early warning systems and prevention of disasters.

4. Linking ministries and official bodies to initiate points of contact between them and cooperation channels.

5. Working to benefit from highly qualified volunteers and the impact of their role in disaster management and risk reduction.

6. Intensifying scientific studies on the Dams and its impact on the course of the Blue Nile, the main Nile, and the affected islands, for example (Tuti Island).

7. Committing prohibitions in the campus of bridges and rivers.

8. Activating the Nile Basin studies and the applied scientific research around it.

9. Promoting legislation that prohibits housing in flood disaster prone areas.

10.  Involving communities in planning and re-planning laws.

11. Merging theoretical and scientific studies and finding a link between scientific and governmental bodies.

12. Establishing an urgent specialized workshop for the studies of dams in terms of legal, constructional and operational aspects.

13. Renewing the structure of the Supreme National Council for Civil Defence.

14. Establishing a disaster centre and supporting it in an effective and systematic manner related to the causes of disasters and coordinating its tasks to reduce the effects of disasters.

15. Working on intellectual awareness to accept change with living conditions and various lifestyles, including scientific models.

16. Proper engineering reflected in planning and the transfer of low-lying and fragile areas to other safe areas, in a scientifically studied and effective way.

17. Activating the role of the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources and developing its tasks to achieve the objectives of these recommendations.

18. Developing the Sudanese building code to include various disasters, including floods, torrents and others.

20. Activating the law protecting the main rivers and waterways and spreading its knowledge to various involved bodies.

21. Unifying the disaster and risk management by proper data collection under the umbrella of the Central Bureau of Statistics.

22. Introducing disasters and resilience management, and appropriate sciences into education at different levels.

23. Allocating a separately dedicated budget for disaster risk reduction in every Sudanese state and related institutions.

24. Encouraging insurance companies to enter into coverage for the consequences of the occurrence of disasters, including the disasters of floods and torrents including agricultural insurance in specific.

25. Paying attention to developing early warning systems in Sudan.

26. Making the best use of scientific research experiences in creating a comprehensive database.

27. Fully utilizing capabilities produced by the monitoring and information centres on floods and flash floods via satellite in strategic planning and management.

28. Establishing general unified directives for designing roads and ferries previewing the passage of floodwater.