Opening Ceremony

Symposium

Working Groups

Steering Meeting

Field Visit

Reception

Gallery
Post Report
INWEPF Thai
List of Participants
INWEPF Secretariat

Email

 


 

On March 21, 2003, the 3rd World Water Forum, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) co-organized the Ministerial Meeting on Water for Food and Agriculture. The meeting adopted the Ministerial Recommendation that addressed the three challenges, "Food security and poverty alleviation", "Sustainable water use" and "Partnership.”

In order to establish an international consortium which addresses the above three challenges, MAFF of Japan has proposed to set up an International Network for Water and Ecosystem in Paddy Fields (INWEPF), and the Informal Preparatory Meeting for the establishment of INWEPF was held in February 2004 in Tokyo. Finally, the 1st INWEPF Steering Meeting was held in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2004 and followed by the 2nd meeting in Seoul, Korea. In both the meetings, TOR (Terms of Reference) and Action Plan 2004-2006 had been established. At the 3rd INWEPF Steering Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, September 2006,  the membership was extended to a larger number of countries and an Action Plan for 2006-2007 was adopted together with the creation of three working groups led respectively by Malaysia, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

The INWEPF will provide an open platform for promoting dialogue, exchanging information and experiences, creating synergy among existing forums, strengthening capacity building, developing good practices and formulating ideas for innovative policy and management options in the field of sustainable paddy water use, conservation of environment and better governance. The strengthening of the network’s activity with the creation of three thematic working groups will increase the analytical capacity of the network as well as its production of tangible products such as guidelines and methodologies. During the symposium, the three working groups will finalize their Terms of Reference and elaborate their programmes of work.

The INWEPF steering meeting will discuss and make decisions on the organization’s administration and summarize the activities for the year 2007-2008, as well as the action plan. Among the agendas to be discussed in this 4th INWEPF Steering Meeting are as the following:    

  • Reporting of INWEPF activities during 2006-2007 (Thailand INWEPF committee)
  • TOR reviewing
  • Preparation of Strategic Action Plan 2007-2008
  • Other businesses (determination of host country for the 5th INWEPF Steering Meeting)

The Steering Meeting is a managing body to make decisions on the organization’s administration and to summarize the INWEPF activities and in principal will be held once a year. For more active communication, a Virtual Meeting (VM) was open on Internet, and there will be A VM in the coming months of March to June 2007. The results of the discussion at the VM will be reported to the 4th Steering Meeting.    

Working Groups (WG) were set up to discuss a specific theme, and are voluntarily organized by representatives from governments and experts. The first ad-hoc WG for Conference on water for food and Ecosystem, held in the Netherlands in February 2005, prepared a paper and contributed to the conference.  The ad-hoc WG was called out for WWF 4, scheduled to in Mexico, March 2006. At the 3rd Workshop and Steering Meeting, the following working groups were created:

-     WG 1: Multiple roles of Paddy Fields (Lead: INWEPF Malaysia; members: Malaysia, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Japan, Egypt, India, Myanmar, FAO)
-     WG 2: Vision, Policy and Information Dissemination on INWEPF activities and programs (Lead: INWEPF Korea; members: Korea, Japan. Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, FAO)
-     WG 3: Monetary Assessment and Value Adding in the Multifunctional Roles of Paddy fields (Lead: INWEPF Japan; member: Pakistan, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, FAO)
Each WG will manage a parallel session on the second day of the Symposium