Dr. Akissa Bahri, Director - Africa, has been selected as the 2009 recipient of the "Prof. C.N.R. Rao Prize for Scientific Research". This prize was instituted in 2006 to honour distinguished scientists from Africa and the Least Developing Countries, who have made outstanding contributions to science and technology. The prize will be awarded to her in Durban, South Africa, on occasion of the TWAS 20th General Meeting and 11th General Conference to be held from 20th to 23rd October 2009.

Akissa Bahri has worked in the field of agricultural use of marginal waters (brackish and waste water), sewage sludge and their impacts on the environment. She has been working for the National Research Institute for Agricultural Engineering, Water and Forestry in her home country Tunisia, where she was in charge of research management in the field of agricultural water use. She has been involved in policy and legislative issues regarding water reuse and land application of sewage sludge, and is a member of different international scientific committees.

She has worked as a consultant to some international organizations such as the World Bank, UNEP, IPTRID and as a lecturer in the Advanced International Training Programme "Water Resources Development in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions", Lund University (Sweden). She was member of the Cemagref Specialized Commission of the Department "Equipments for Water and the Environment", France, and member of the Scientific Committee of the Programme Solidarite-Eau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France. She was elected in 2000 to the International Water Academy and member of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World in 2003 and of the African Academy of Sciences in 2007 (Trieste, Italy).

She has been awarded by Guinness Foundation (January 1984), the International Foundation for Science (Sweden) (May 1993), and the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (1996). She had been a member of IWMI's Board of Governors from January 1, 2003 until December 31, 2004, and a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California at Davis from January to June 2005.

Akissa Bahri was appointed Director of Africa of the International Water Management Institute, a CGIAR-supported research institute headquartered in Colombo, Sri Lanka, effective September 2005.