The Plan was completed with cooperation between the following partner organisations: the Regional Activity Centre for the Priority Actions Programme (PAP/RAC), Global Water Partnership Mediterranean (GWP-Med), UNESCO-International Hydrological Programme (UNESCO-IHP) and two teams of National (Albanian and Montenegrin) experts. A Steering Committee was established to operationalise the Plan's progress.
Two stakeholder workshops and several local community focus group discussions were held to support Plan development including setting a vision for the watershed and gathering data for the watershed analysis. The Plan was completed over a 5-year time frame in 2015, with cooperation between partner organizations (GWP-Med, PAP/RAC, UNESCO-IHP). During the development of the Plan, several meetings took place. A Steering Committee was organized to allocate the organizational structure, purpose, roles, and process of the operational scheme of the Plan. Two stakeholder workshops at the transboundary level were held: one at the beginning to discuss the vision of the area, as well as one at the end of the process to present the key findings of the watershed analysis. Several focus group discussions with local communities took place to contribute valuable stakeholder analysis of the Buna/Bojana watershed.
The Plan, developed with an integrated approach, recommended the following objectives:
- Enhance transboundary governance and cooperation for ecosystem conservation of the watershed and its respective services provided;
- Support policy reforms at the national and transboundary levels, especially regarding spatial planning;
- Compile all data into a knowledge system, enabling knowledge sharing capacities for the management of the transboundary system, as well as for improving monitoring systems;
- Improve the ecological and chemical status of water bodies and safeguard the availability of good water quality, while maintaining the hydrological conditions of the water bodies;
- Improve the quality of the landscape while protecting the biodiversity and natural values of the watershed;
- Support economic activities through the development of green jobs; and
- Promote the development of climate change adaptation infrastructure in the area to protect from natural disaster impacts.