Ceremony of Babaqi’s Award

The Water and Environment Center at Sana’a University, in partnership with the Dutch organization MetaMeta, honored on Wednesday, August 18 - 2021, the winners of the Professor Abdullah Saleh Babqi Award for Good Practices for Strengthening Water and Sanitation Services during Emergencies and Crises. In the honor, the Minister of Water and Environment, Eng. Abdul-Raqeeb Al-Shurmani, stressed the importance of the honor in appreciation of the efforts of research centers and researchers to reach a solution to water and environmental problems during emergencies and crises. He explained that the Water and Environment Center at Sana'a University has played a major role since its establishment, which was headed by its founders, Professor Abdullah Babaqi, may God have mercy on him, as many engineers and cadres of the water sector received training at the center in the technical, administrative and capacity building fields. Minister Al-Shurmani expressed his hope that the center will play an important role in the future and be supportive of the ministry's directions to come up with scientific visions that keep pace with modern science on water and environmental issues. For his part, the President of Sana'a University, Dr. Al-Qasim Abbas, stressed the importance of honoring the winners of the award of the late Professor Abdullah Babaqi, who presented visions and ideas of scientific value whose benefits will be tangible on the ground. He pointed out that 15 teams representing eight local water and sanitation institutions from Amanat Al-Asimah, Ibb, Hajjah, Saada, Dhamar, Al-Bayda, Al-Hodeidah and Sana'a were submitted for the award. A total of 117 practices were received, of which 65 were selected for the evaluation phase. Dr. Al-Qasim pointed out that the evaluation was carried out by the Yemeni side, represented by the Water and Environment Center at Sana’a University, and the Dutch side by the Dutch MetaMeta Organization. GIZ Yemen, GIZ Jordan and Oxfam Yemen .. He indicated that through this committee, these practices were reviewed and evaluated, and the winners were identified. He pointed out that the winning teams presented distinguished ideas and implemented and practiced them on the ground, and they had an impact and benefit.. He praised the efforts of the Water and Environment Center and its role in actively contributing to the continued resilience of the Yemeni people. For their part, the Director of the Water and Environment Center, Dr. Adel Al-Washli, and Dr. Frank van Steenbergen, on behalf of the Dutch MetaMeta Foundation, pointed out the importance of honoring the winners of the award, which was launched as an annual award in the field of water in memory of Babaqi as the first founder of the center. They expressed their hope to continue to announce the competition periodically and to diversify its fields and axes to include all the problems that impede the achievement of Yemen's strategic water security. They considered the award an encouragement for scientific research and a stimulus for all academics, engineers and those interested in water. In the end, the winning teams in the first three places were honored, where the team of the local organization in Sana’a received an amount of 1.5 million riyals, the second prize was the local institution in Ibb with one million riyals, and the third prize was won by the team of the local institution in Dhamar governorate with 500 thousand riyals.

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