Honorable Minister invites all National Committees on ICID and other National / International delegates to attend 59th IEC and 20th Congress of ICID.

 
It gives me an immense pleasure to invite all of you and the members of ICID family to join us in Lahore - Pakistan to participate in the 59th  IEC meeting and 20th ICID Congress October 13 - 18, 2008 followed by field trips and recreational tours. Pakistan has many historic and beautiful tourists sites, vast experiences in irrigation and drainage infrastructure and a very warm and friendly hospitable People. We will make every possible effort to or this mega event in a befitting way.
The theme of the Congress is "Participatory Integrated Water Resources Management- From Concepts to Actions". Integrated water resources management is an issue of very high significance. It involves national and global assets of great socio-cultural, ecological and economic values. The prevailing system of uncoordinated water resources management cannot sustain the ever increasing water needs of the various expanding sectors, therefore, a strategy must be evolved to integrate the various sectoral needs against the available water resources in order to attain both economic and ecological sustainability. Participatory approach with the stakeholders needs to be established on several key issues taking a holistic view of alt the available resources, irrigation practices and cropping patterns.
Pakistan is a country having one of the world’s largest contiguous integrated irrigation system in the world. It is where the famous "Khosla” and "Lacey” theories for design of irrigation channels got their birth. I am confident that the water resources professionals attending the 20th Congress and 59th IEC meeting will immensely benefit from the multi-facet experiences in research and practice found in the Indus Basis. Pakistan has the privilege of hosting the event for the second time in its 60 years old history, the first time it was. held in 1986, at Lahore.
It must be noted that approaches in managing water resources poses serious challenges for the Planners. These Challenges are similar in many other cases in the world being faced in the 21 ‘ century. Therefore, the theme of ICID 20th Congress “Participatory Integrated Water Resources Management - From Concepts to Actions” provides us an opportunity to discuss these issues and share our experiences among scientists, engineers, experts and other professionals from around the globe in Lahore during 20th Congress in 2008.

I look forward seeing you in the historic city of Lahore. We shall endeavor to make the stay of the Participants comfortable and memorable.

Raja Pervaiz Ashraf
Minister for Water & Power

Syed Raghib Abas Shah after graduating as Civil Engineer Joined WAPDA in 1974 and presently working as Member (Water), WAPDA. He has more than 34 years vast experience in the field of Irrigation and Drainage Project Management in the capacity of Junior Engineer, Senior Engineer, Project Director ,Chief Engineer and General Manager. Being member of PANCID he has recently been elected as member of Permanent Finance Commission of ICID during ICID meeting held at Malaysia 2006. He is life time member of Pakistan Engineering Council, Pakistan Institute of Engineers and Pakistan Engineering Congress.
He has been appointed as Secretary General of the Organizing Committee of PANCID for holding ICID 2008 Lahore - Pakistan.
Syed Raghib Abbas Shah has the privilege of attending the ICID conferences at Moscow 2004, Beijing 2005, Malaysia 2006 and Sacramento (USA) 2007 as a member of Pakistan contingent.
He has also attended Global Water Partnership meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka and South Asia Regional workshop on Transparency and Integrity in the Water Sector, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
He has presented a paper on "Overview of Challenges and Strategies of Water Resources Management in Pakistan" under UNESCO in Tehran, Iran.

Mr. Waseem Nazir is a Civil Engineer with an MSc in Irrigation Engineering and BA from UK.
Mr. Nazir has long association with PANCID and represented Pakistan as a delegated member in the recent past at Congress and IEC meetings of ICID. He is also a permanent member on various ICID committees.
More than 25 years of corporate experience with private and public organizations. Diversified experience in the field of Planning, Development and Management of multidisciplinary projects especially in Water Resources and Irrigation & Drainage sector. Worked with international agencies, government and semi-government departments. Work experience also includes Middle East and United Kingdom. Presently working as Country Manager Pakistan and Regional Director (South Asia) for Mott MacDonald Group, a UK based multinational.

Mr. Atta-ur-Rehman did his Masters in Computer Science from Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad and joined WAPDA as Deputy Director IT. After serving the organization for 24 years in different portfolios was appointed as the Head of IT department at WAPDA in 2004. WAPDA being the largest IT organization of the country is responsible for all IT activities throughout the country vide it's eight regional offices spread in all four provinces.
Mr. Atta-ur-Rehman has lead several large IT projects in WAPDA and abroad and completed them with precision and earned good name both for the Organization and himself.
He was also the Project Manager for the IT committee of Parliamentary Committee of Water Resources. Due to his extraordinary capabilities he has been appointed as Convener of the IT committee for ICID 2008 Lahore - Pakistan.