Context and justification

The importance of water cannot be emphasized enough. Water is not only vital for the human population in terms of domestic needs, but it is also directly and indirectly linked to many other areas such as agriculture, energy, environment, tourism, recreation , economy and health. Ensuring the sustainability of this resource has become a global concern, and therefore capacity building in water resources is highly necessary.

The Congo Basin region is located in the heart of Africa and is shared by nine riparian countries. Hydrologically, the Congo Basin is the second largest river basin in the world, after the Amazon. It generates an annual volume of water of approximately 1,300 billion m3 at its outlet, which represents more than half of the total flow of the African continent (Tshimanga, 2012). The Congo Basin offers opportunities for the production and provision of many goods and services, including agriculture and food security, fishing, hydropower, water supply, transport and maintenance of aquatic ecosystems. Overall, the basin has the potential to play a leading role in regional cooperation to reduce poverty, while providing livelihood and income opportunities for communities.

The questions of the water resource potential of the DRC and the Congo Basin were addressed in several respects. The region faces multiple challenges related to water, including the lack of adequate knowledge on water dynamics, its distribution in time and space, the interactions to which it is subject, as well as how our efforts should be coordinated to improve security of supply and ensure its sustainability.

Although the number, complexity and severity of water-related problems continue to increase, investment in training and capacity building necessary to develop a better understanding of water resource dynamics and improve the access to their services is sorely lacking. Indeed, there is no coordinated process for considering water resources training needs, prioritizing them for funding purposes, or for evaluating the effectiveness of training programs. Capacity building needs for sustainable water resources management have been assessed through various reports, but implementation remains difficult, partly due to the absence of a solid supporting strategy. The achievement of sustainable development and inclusive growth in the DRC and the Congo Basin region would be largely compromised if water resources are not managed and used in a sustainable, integrated and efficient manner. As countries in the Congo Basin region strive to improve political, economic and social stability, the need for secure water supplies will become increasingly important.

If this aspect is neglected, there are risks of conflicts :

1. within communities - due to lack of access to water resource services
2. between countries - due to the lack of agreement on the cross-border sharing of water resources and
3. between social groups due to a sharing of water resources perceived as non-inclusive and equitable (distributive justice).

This therefore requires concerted actions oriented towards innovative research and capacity building in order to promote harmonious and efficient use of the water resources of the DRC and the Congo Basin region.

In November 2013, a workshop on training and research needs in water resources in the Congo Basin was organized in Kinshasa by CB-HYDRONET and the Department of Natural Resources Management of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Kinshasa and their partners Cap-Net UNDP and GWP-CAF. The results of the workshop showed that:

• The water sector in general suffers from a lack of qualified personnel to undertake water resources planning and development actions.
• Universities as well as other higher education institutions in the country provide introductory training in water sciences taught in second cycles, which are not sufficient to provide learners with sufficient knowledge enabling them to cope effectively to the numerous water problems facing the country such as hydrometeorological and climatological monitoring to assess the availability of water and its distribution in time and space, hydraulic developments for the mobilization of surface water resources and underground with a view to optimizing production, the development of waterways and agricultural services to facilitate the flow of agricultural products, the mobilization of water and energy for the food processing industry and the supply chain. value of agricultural products, hydraulic development and protection of watersheds to ensure the function of water production and the fight against pollution of waterways, monitoring of floods and drought, the economy of water, fish production, flooding of mines and quarries, drainage of urban water, etc.
• Various educational programs have been implemented in collaboration with regional and international partners, including WATERNET, where students undertake their studies abroad in water-related disciplines, but this does not contribute to achieving a critical mass of professional water needs at the national level.
• Most of these educational programs at the regional or international level are held in English, and the language barrier has also been identified as a major obstacle to the success of these programs for nationals of the DRC, which is a French-speaking country.
• The role of international development agencies in supporting capacity building through education and training remains difficult to assess, as there appears to be no direct impact on the ground. From the respondents' perspective, there are no clear strategies for human resources or institutional capacity building, which clearly shows a problem with the national IWRM implementation policy to help achieve the vision African water.
• The workshop had recommended that a national training program be designed and implemented for education and training with emphasis on specific water profiles at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, development of water centers of excellence for capacity building in water-related disciplines, consolidating the role of existing water capacity building networks to encourage information sharing and implementation of professional capacity building activities.