Hani Sewilam
H.E. Professor Hani Sewilam, the Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, is a professor of Hydrology and Water Resources Management. He worked as the Managing Director of the UNESCO Chair in Hydrological Changes and Water Resources Management at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany, and he was also the University Rector’s Delegate for African Countries.
H.E. Professor Sewilam worked as a professor at the American University in Cairo and the founding director of the Center for Applied Research in Environmental Sustainability (CARES).
In 2022, he was awarded the 2022 Water Energy Food Ecosystem (WEFE) Nexus Award by the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area, known as PRIMA (Part of the European Union).
In his early career stage, he worked as a researcher at the National Water Research Center of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation in Egypt. H.E. Prof. Sewilam has more than 130 international publications in water-related areas. Irrigation, Water-Energy-Food nexus, Hydrology, water management, desalination, and integrated water systems are his main areas of focus.
Since 2002, H.E. Professor Sewilam has been raising funds and implementing research and development projects in collaboration with institutions from at least 20 European, Mediterranean and African countries. He has implemented many international research and development projects in the water areas including flood risk management, innovative capacity-building programme, solar-powered desalination, aquaponics, hydroponics, and effective water management.
In addition, H.E. Professor Sewilam has many academic achievements such as co-founding an MSc program in “Sustainable Management – Water and Energy” at the RWTH Aachen in Germany and founding another M.Sc. program in “Sustainable Development” at the American University in Cairo.
He acted between 2018-2021 as one of the main technical team supporting the negotiations between the three countries dealing with the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. H.E. Professor Sewilam was awarded his PhD (summa cum laude) from the RWTH Aachen University in water resources management and his MSc from Southampton University in the UK in the area of irrigation management and BSc from Zagazig University in Civil Engineering.
