Awar Water is an international consulting firm drawing on the broad experience of its staff and a wide range of associated professionals and organizations.
Our staff and associates come from prominent institutions with deep knowledge of the requirements of international development agencies, national government, and the private sector.
Our experience and strong national and regional networks extends across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and South East Europe.
Awar Water main collaborator, for specific engagements in the GCC region, is:
Our guarantee of superior quality of work and professional integrity which has helped us gain the trust of clients and decision makers. Building on these assets, Awar Water is set to provide best advisory services as well as technical, management, governance, and policy solutions to its clients.
Awar Water About Us
OUR FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Dr. Faraj El Awar
Dr. El-Awar’s diversified career traverses the nexus between strategic guidance and mobilizing necessary resources for the development and execution of water resources management, policy formulation, and sector governance interventions. Throughout his professional career, Dr. El-Awar has had the opportunity to lead national, regional, and international programs through the development and implementation of program strategies, work planning, and leading multi-disciplinary professional teams for implementation and fulfilling monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) requirements. Dr. El-Awar has also had the opportunity to contribute to enhancement of land and water sector policies, as well as technical assistance and climate change preparedness of water and sanitation utilities. His portfolio includes mobilizing more than 14 million US Dollars, from traditional and non-traditional donor countries, for core and operational budgets of programs he led, and the establishment of an extensive professional network of development and financial partners at global, regional, and national levels.
Also, he has provided his advisory services for water sector governance and policy formulation, as well as WASH service provision in Africa, Central Asia, and the Arab region.
In Lebanon, Dr. El-Awar has supported the water sector for more than 15 years so far. He supported the Lebanese regional water utilities through institutional capacity development and non-revenue water management. He also developed integrated basin management policy for the Litany river basin and local development plans and community-based water management policies for various rural and peri-urban communities in the country. While In Jordan, Dr. El-Awar led the assessment of Government achievement of set benchmarks of non-revenue water reduction and water tariff reform. In Kuwait, he developed a water-conservation oriented national water management policy for the agricultural sector. In Iraq, he developed a national strategy for sustainable land management (SLM).
Regionally, Dr. El-Awar worked on the conservation and sustainable use of dry land agro-biodiversity in the MENA region and assessed water harvesting and conservation potentials for such use. At ICARDA, he directed resource mobilization, strategic partnerships, and operational programs in 13 country offices. Moreover, he initiated the foundation of strategic alliances, with major development partners, for sustainable development and food security in the Arab region. In Africa, Dr. El-Awar supported several water and sanitation utilities improve their performance through peer support partnerships. In Central Asia, as FAO Senior Land and Water Expert, he supported various countries in their integrated water resources management (IWRM) national planning and land degradation neutrality (LDN) approach planning and implementation.
Between 2008 and 2017, Dr. El-Awar headed the Global Water Operators’ Partnerships Alliance (GWOPA).
Additionally, he set up GWOPA’s vision and strategic direction, represented GWOPA and led all its advocacy activities at high-level political and professional international fora, and built strategic partnerships with governments, UN and non-UN development agencies, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and civil society groups. Dr. El-Awar also led GWOPA’s portfolio development and supervised all the Alliance’s normative and operational activities through its decentralized regional WOPs platforms in sub-Saharan Africa, South and South East Asia, the Pacific region, Latin America, the Caribbean, South East Europe, and the Arab countries. More than 320 WOPs, in support of water operators serving more than 100 million people, were implemented under his leadership worldwide
Prior to 2008, as Assistant Professor at the American University of Beirut, Dr. El-Awar headed academic research teams working on theoretical and applied research in water conservation, optimization, and dryland hydrology. His research achievements included the development of a new water harvesting approach that was implemented in marginal drylands of Lebanon. He also led his team that worked on the optimization of dryland agricultural systems and cropping patterns, wastewater reuse systems, and operation of multi-purpose reservoirs for maximizing irrigation and energy outputs. Much of these research outcomes are published in peer reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and articles of specialized development agencies. Dr. El-Awar also led professional teams of practitioners working on translating research findings into sustainable development policies and practices. He supervised a team of practitioners that analyzed impact assessment of water policies on agricultural production in Iraq.