The Advisory Panel for Water Management and Drainage (APP) was established in 1976, the oldest and first-known project under the Egyptian–Dutch Bilateral Cooperation Program. The construction of Aswan High Dam necessitated large scale drainage schemes in the Nile Valley and Delta. The experience of Dutch experts in land drainage is well-known allover the world and in actual fact Egypt has been benefiting from this experience through the APP, which has been supported from the very early beginning by a number of projects, aiming at developing new technologies geared to the Egyptian conditions.
The Panel was initially set up for land drainage in order to advise the Egyptian Public Authority for Drainage Projects (EPADP) and Drainage Research Institute (DRI) of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation of Egypt (MWRI) on some related technical issues. In this manner, the Panel has been gradually involved in formulating and supervising a number of projects, thereby evolving into an umbrella-organization that encompassed all Egyptian-Dutch activities in the drainage sector.
In the last three decades, dramatic changes with respect to technical and policy issues have taken place. For that reason, the Panel role has become mostly directed towards advising the MWRI on water management policy issues and coordinating between the ongoing Dutch Projects. In this context, APP has changed its designation to “ Advisory Panel Project on Water Management ”.
Recently, the Netherlands Government policy has taken steps to restructure the bilateral development program within a number of countries and Egypt is included in the list of partner countries. The new bilateral program is mainly focusing on one sector: water environment. This of course will add another dimension and scope to the panel activitie.