It was observed that training groups of young professionals coming from countries with different political background and culture was fostering friendly relationships between them and proved as such to be an excellent long-term investment. These people having spent months together during their training in the region have often become friends for the rest of their life. In fact they form what is called nowadays: a “Community of Practice” (CoP). This successful experience was behind the idea to Establish The Nile Basin Capacity building Network for River Engineering (NBCBN-RE) which took place in 2002.
NBCBN-Re
The main objective of NBCBN-RE was to create an environment in which professionals from the water sector sharing the same river basin would have the possibility to exchange ideas, best practices and lessons learned.
Special emphasis is given in the NBCBN network to build an environment for stimulating and supporting collaborative applied research. In parallel to the node development activities, the network is supporting the development of joint regional research clusters. Six country nodes have volunteered to act as the host institution for a particular regional research cluster: Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. They take the lead in coordinating and implementing joint applied research in a specific topic of river engineering together with several of the other nodes participating in the research activities. For Further information on NBCBN visit: http://www.nbcbn.com