Prof. Dr. Tariq Banuri – Associate Director from University of Utah delivers lecture on Water, Energy, Food Security Nexus & Sustainable Development

Prof. Dr. Tariq Banuri, Associate Director from University of Utah said that Water, Energy and Food Security are interconnected and are equally important to be addressed properly in Pakistan, if to seek for sustainable development in the country. He said while delivering lecture  on “Water, Energy, Food Security (WEF) Nexus and Sustainable Development”  today at U.S.-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water (USPCAS-W) , Mehran University of Engineering & Technology (MUET) Jamshoro. Dr. Banuri said that water crisis in country is strongly interconnected with problems of populations, inadequate energy particularly electricity and governance. Water in Pakistan is considered free commodity and people are actually paying for energy rather that for water, he added.

Prof. Banuri said that Pakistan may seek the alternative energy sources as to minimize the use of water as an only ingredient for energy production. Dr. Banuri was of the view that overgrowing population and energy crisis are behind the water, energy and food security problems in the country.  He stressed on the mass mobilization for realizing the importance of water and to be priced for that important commodity of daily life. He also advised for the integration of all components to be carried for way forward to mitigate the water challenges of country. He stressed to build the capacity of human resources, sensitize the governments and to improve the management of natural resources could be beneficial to tackle the WEF Nexus crisis and to improve the indicators of development in the country.

He also highlighting the research component of the USPCAS-W project said that research is one of the prime purposes behind the establishment of USPCAS-W – a state-of-the-art water research center at MUET Jamshoro by the support of American people through the Unites States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is technically assisted by University of Utah, USA as a partnering university. He said that to build the capacity of the faculty and students of this center through the exchange program is one of the key objectives of this USAID funded project.

The lecture was followed by the presentations of MS/PhD students on their respective research proposals. The session was facilitated by USPCAS-W Chief of Party (CoP) Dr. Mohammad Aslam Chaudhry while Prof. Dr. Sajjad Ahmed – Technical Advisor, Deputy Director Dr. Kamran Ansari, Director Administration Dr. Rafiq Chandio, Gender Specialist Shabnam Baloch, Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist Shahid Panhwar, faculty and students of USPCAS-W attended the event. Prior to this session, Dr. Tariq Banuri met with Dr. Mohammad Aslam Uqaili, vice chancellor MUET Jamshoro in his office and exchange thoughts of their mutual interest and mutually agreed to set up a woman resource center in MUET which will implement and ensure the gender equity policy throughout the university.