News and Activities

Thirty participants from 5 Middle East & Nortnern Africa (MENA) countries - Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia - gathered in Tunisia, on 8-19 February 2015, in a course held in the framework of the 4-year MENA Integrated Sustainable Coastal Development Training Programme (MENA ISCD), financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and jointly implemented by NIRAS Natura AB and the Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med).

Α Regional Roundtable & a Working Meeting on “Water, Food, Energy and Environment Nexus in South East Europe” were organized by the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), Global Water Partnership - Mediterranean (GWP-Med) and Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), in cooperation with the German Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), Global Environment Facility (GEF) International Waters: Learning Exchange and Resources Network (IW:LEARN) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

A training workshop was organized in Tunis, in the framework of the Water, Climate, Development Program for Africa (WACDEP), on 20-23 October; the second one out of a series of five training workshops composing the capacity building program “The Economics of Adaptation, Water Security and Climate Resilient Development”. This series of workshops follows the Framework cycle developed under WACDEP for water security and climate resilience.

The first consultation workshop of the Water Policy Dialogue in Palestine, within the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) labelled project Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector was held in close cooperation with the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), on 13 November 2014, in Ramallah. With more than 40 key stakeholders from the government; private companies and banks; research institutes and Academia; media as well as the Civil Society actively participating, the workshop marked the official launch of the Policy Dialogue to be conducted by GWP-Med within the period 2014-2015.

The 1st Regional Conference of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) labelled project Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector was organised on 28-30 October 2014, in Athens, Greece, by the Global Water Partnership- Mediterranean (GWP-Med), in close collaboration with the EU funded Sustainable Water Integrated Management-Support Mechanism (SWIM-SM) project. It convened more than 110 decision makers; representatives of government; civil society; the private sector; international organisations; donors and financing institutions.

The national Report entitled “Water Governance in Jordan: Overcoming the Challenges to Private Sector Participation” was launched during the Third Workshop of the Water Policy Dialogue in Jordan and in the presence of H.E. Basem Telfah, Secretary General of the Ministry for Water and Irrigation, as well as a wide range of stakeholders, including authorities, utilities, donors, civil society and private sector, in Amman, on 4 June 2014.

The national Water Policy Dialogue, having engaged more than 100 Tunisian stakeholders within the past year (2013-2014), concluded with the launch of the National Report “Water Governance in Tunisia: Overcoming the Challenges to Private Sector Participation” held on 9 June 2014, in Tunis. The Report is the outcome of the multi-stakeholder Policy Dialogue and includes a diagnostic analysis of the key governance bottlenecks to private sector participation (PSP) in water supply and sanitation services as well as concrete policy recommendations for overcoming them.

The Policy Dialogue in the framework of the joint GWP-Med and OECD Project on Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector held its second consultation workshop in Tunis on March 5, 2014.

On 23 October 2013, the joint GWP-Med/OECD Project Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector launched the national policy dialogue in Jordan during a consultation workshop held in Amman.

A high–level conference launching the Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector project was organised by GWP-Med, in Barcelona, 28-29 May 2013, in close cooperation and under the auspices of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) Secretariat.