The Ministry of Agriculture, Hydraulic Resources and Fisheries (MARHP), through the Directorate General for Water Resources (DGRE), has led a process to develop an Action Plan (PAGIRE) to strengthen its Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) from June 2022 to March 2023. This process was facilitated by the Global Water Partnership for the Mediterranean (GWP-Med), through the SDG 6 IWRM Support Programme. A Task Force was set up to steer the development of the Action Plan, guide the consultation process and examine and comment on the outline of the Action Plan before it was presented to the stakeholders for discussion and validation. The consultation process brought together 85 representatives of the various ministerial departments and structures involved in water resource management within the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Equipment and Territorial Planning, at both central and regional level, the National Institute of Meteorology, the National Centre for Cartography and Remote Sensing, professional and civil society organisations, representatives from academia and independent experts. The result is an IWRM Action Plan (PAGIRE) consisting of 13 actions to strengthen IWRM implementation, providing a framework for advancing coherence and synergy in government action on water resources management. The following action is part of the PAGIRE.
This action focuses on creating a fund based on the polluter-pays principle to carry out actions to rehabilitate and decontaminate water bodies. It will include an examination of the effectiveness of the existing tools incorporating the polluter-pays principle and a revision of the tools based on the findings. It will include also a financial, institutional and legal study to examine the potential of creating a water rehabilitation fund. Furthermore, priority projects to be covered by the fund will be defined and the required legal set up prepared for the setting up of the fund.
