"Thanks for useful insights and discussions on local water governance in the Middle East"

"I am proud to know Ton Schouten and Patrick Moriarty of the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and Peter Laban of CARE International. I thank them for their useful insights and discussions on local water governance in the Middle East. Working together with them and the EMPOWERS project in 2006 has really motivated me to improve and finish the writing of this thesis." This is how Joshka Wessels acknowledged support of IRC and CARE International in her academic thesis " To Cooperate or not to cooperate...? Collective action for rehabillation of traditional water tunnel systems (qanats) in Syria", which brought her a doctoral degree from the University of Amsterdam in May 2008.

Community water management titles used

Joshka also used three publications by IRC authors on community water management as references in her dissertation, which was published by Vossiuspers UvA - Amsterdam University Press, 2008, ISBN 978 90 5629 518 9:

1. Lammerink, M.P. et al. (1998) Partcipatory action research in six countries from the South, World Bank/WBI''s CBNRM Initiative [online] URL http://srdis.ciesin.org/cases/pakistan-004.html.

2. Moriarty, P., Batchelor, C., Abd-Alhadi, F. and Laban, P, (2007), Guidelines for Improved Local Water Governance, Amman, EMPOWERS/EU MEDA Water Programme. Download PDF from http://www.project.empowers.info/page/2850

3. Schouten, T. and Moriarty, P. (2003). Community water, community management : from system to service in rural areas. London, UK, ITDG Publishing

Digital video training

IRC used Joshka's expertise on film making and digital video training also in the ‘Process documentation for learning alliances and action research’ workshop in the city of Łódz in central Poland, 1-5 July 2007, supported by the SWITCH research project, IRC and EMPOWERS. See the Source Bulletin article on the outputs of stories by participants on film, photos and writing.