Regional workshop on strategic and mid-term planning for water management
On 25-26 April in Minsk, participants at a regional workshop worked on devising a strategy planning for taking this approach further east.
This regional meeting brought together representatives of the beneficiary institutions from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Republic of Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine. Other participants included project implementing partners, representatives from the European Commission and EU Delegation to the Republic of Belarus.
The meeting was opened by Mr. Andrej KHMEL, Deputy Minister of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Protection of the Republic of Belarus.
The Minsk workshop focused on strategic planning of water resources and infrastructure in the EaP countries. Speakers introduced a plan for regional capacity development in strategic and mid-term planning for water, followed by country presentations on the status of planning and implementing national water strategies and mid-term plans, emphasising opportunities for receiving support and driving the implementation through respective EUWI+East country work plans.
Challenges for RBM Planning and implementation based on WFD principles in EaP countries and the role of reliable monitoring data have been presented and discussed as well as measures being taken to align the national strategic and sectorial water plans with the international obligations including Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs).
Experts agree that the best approach to conserving and ensuring economic use of the world's freshwater resources is by managing river basins sustainably. Experience shows that integrated water resources management at basin level brings significant governance and economic advantages. The result is concrete solutions for water users, ranging from tourism and energy needs to navigation and agriculture. This step towards implementing IWRM and the EU water framework directive principles in Eastern partnership countries has the tangible objective of improving quality of life for water users.