Transboundary: National Integrated Water Resources Management Dialogues - Experience from Central and Eastern Europe

To fulfill its mission to support countries in sustainable management of their water resources, GWP has used dialogues as facilitated conversations among groups with often disparate views to discuss contentious water management issues. Responding to the national water priority papers and second informal IWRM survey in 2006, GWP announced the National Dialogues Initiative.

Country water partnerships (under GWP CEE) in 12 countries of Central and Eastern Europe organised national IWRM dialogues from 2006 until 2007. The following countries were involved: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.

The dialogues were generally organized by the CWPs in cooperation with the consulting partner organizations and wide range of stakeholders including governments, universities, private sector, NGOs, local municipalities and others. In some countries, such as Hungary and Poland, the dialogue initiative continued with more that a single event.

The dialogues reflected priorities on the national level ranging from river basin planning, sustainable sanitation, water governance, and cross sectoral cooperation. Goal of the dialogues was to address national IWRM priorities, strengthen cooperation with major stakeholders and initiate changes in policies and legislation.

GWP CEE and all CWPs supported respective International River Basin Commissions in capturing a wide spectrum of stakeholders ranging from governments, businesses, NGOs and local municipalities.

The River Basin Management Plans adopted in the CEE region include measures to achieve a good status by 2015.

Despite their common past, the dialogues showed a great deal of diversity among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. They truly reflected priorities on national level ranging from river basin planning, sanitation issues, IWRM in urban areas, water governance, cross sectoral cooperation and others.

The dialogues were the opportunity for country water partnerships to clarify the EU concept of river basin planning brought by Water Framework Directive and IWRM planning. They also helped to identify gaps that were later addressed by GWP or its partner organizations. One example of such activity is the GWP CEE sustainable sanitation initiative which revealed that more than 20 million people, especially in rural areas, have no access to proper municipal waste water treatment services.

In most cases outcomes of the dialogues were instrumental to governments reporting on the progress of IWRM plans and EU WFD as well. The outcomes further led to common declarations with governments, strengthening cooperation with major stakeholders and changes in legislation. The dialogues attracted not only new stakeholders but also financial commitments by partner organizations. In many countries, GWP Water Partnerships are planning to continue the dialogues with their own resources. The meetings also clearly demonstrated that CWPs are recognized as IWRM facilitators able to bring together different players to discuss complex issues of water management.