UNEP engineer honoured for contribution to Sudan water sector
Khartoum, 30 March 2011
Dr Hamid Omer receives his awards from (l-r) UNESCO Sudan Country Director, Ibrahimo Sidibi, Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, Dr Salaheldin Yousif and Dr Farah Mustafa, Minister of Public Education
A distinguished engineer working with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Dr Hamid Omer Ali, has been honoured for his lifetime contribution to the water sector in Sudan.
Dr Hamid Omer, a Senior Water Resource consultant with UNEP, was presented with two awards by the Minister of Public Education, Dr Farah Mustafa, at a World Water Day event in Khartoum.
He received an Appreciation Certificate from the International Hydrological Program and a recognition award from the UNESCO National Committee, which staged the event,
Before joining UNEP, Dr Hamid Omer worked for the Rural Water Corporation in Darfur for 13 years, initially as a hydro-geologist and geophysicist and later as its Director-General. More recently he worked on the design of water supply systems in Nyala and El Fasher towns in Darfur for the Darfur Reconstruction and Development Fund.
For the past four years, Dr Hamid Omer has been at the forefront of cooperative efforts by UNEP to further sound management practices, research and government policy to promote sustainable and equitable water resource management in Sudan.
He was part of the UNEP team which worked with the Groundwater and Waddies Department to identify locations at risk of acute groundwater depletion in camps for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Darfur. Dr Hamid Omer also helped broker a US$12 million investment by UKaid in urban water management in Darfur and supported the development of drought contingency planning in the region.
Speaking at the World Water Day event, UNEP Programme Coordinator, Brendan Bromwich, said Dr Hamid Omer had helped draw attention to the need for improved urban planning and greater investment in water and environmental services and infrastructure in the face of rapid urbanization.
“Urbanisation is transforming Sudan as we know it, and while the scale of the challenge to meet communities’ changing needs is enormous, with capable engineers and scientists of the calibre of Dr Hamid Omer, there is much that can be done,” said Mr Bromwich.
“It’s been a great honour for me to work with Dr Hamid Omer over the past four years and I am delighted to see his work formally recognized,” he added.
Sudan’s Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, Dr Salaheldin Yousif, and the UNESCO Country Director, Ibrahim Sidibi, were also among the 300 participants at the event.
Integrated Water Resources Management is a major theme of UNEP’s work in Sudan and is supported by UKaid from the Department for International Development.
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SOURCE: UNEP Official Web Site: http://hqweb.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=664&ArticleID=8680&l=en