Promoting Twinning of River Basins for Developing

1. Promoting Twinning of River Basins for Developing • Integrated Water Resources Management Practices WEBCONFERENCE January 10th - Alain Bernard, Project Manager

2. TwinBasinXN Promoting Twinning of River Basins for Developing Integrated Water Resources Management Practices • Objective :Develop Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) good practices, by focusing on Human Resources Development (HRD) in Basin Organisations • Means :Promotion of Twinning agreements between Basin Org. and support of joint activities for HRD (staff mobility) • Support for implementation of - Water Framework Directive - European Union Water Initiative « Water for Life »

3. TwinBasinXN Promoting Twinning of River Basins for Developing Integrated Water Resources Management Practices Why ? In many cases Twinning agreements : • have not really been really implemented above the “political” event organised for the signature of the Agreement and related Communication campaign. • lacked budget for such “basic” topics as Plane tickets and Per Diem; • when implemented, their positive results generally gained from these experiments remained confined at the level of directly involved structures and dissemination step is not sufficient

4. Activities :  Think Tank for fruitful twinning between members(Model agreements, type of activities, reporting, …) Promotion of twinning North-South, S-S, N-N (Partner search facility, …) Support for peer-to-peer exchanges and staff mobility (hands-on periods in sister-organisation) Bottom-up identification and promotion of practices (hands-on reporting, community exchanges, web seminars, …) Dissemination of research outcomes(web seminars, community exchanges, …)

5. Partners • International Office for Water • Agence de l’Eau Seine Normandie (France) • International Network of Basin Organisations • Ea Pôle de l’eau (France) • Confederacion Hidrografica del Jucar – MENBO (Spain) • Secretaria de Recursos Hídricos - SRH - Ministry of Environment (Brazil) • Global Water Partnership (Sweden) • Techware - Hydrocontrol (Italy) • RZGW – Gdansk (Poland) • National Water Authority - OVF (Hungary) • Interstate Co-ordination Water Commission – Aral Sea (Uzbekistan) • Jara Tirta I Corporation (Indonesia) • African Network of Basin Organisations - ANBO (Africa - Niger) • Basin Agency Algerois – Hodna – Soumman (Algeria) • Hydraulic Basin Agency – Sebou (Morocco) • Organisation pour le Mise en Valeur du Senegal (Senegal) • Comision Nacional del Agua - CNA (Mexico) • Apele Romane (Romania)

6. Description • A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as voluntarycommitment to participate to the exchanges • Creation of working groups among participants (Special Interest Groups - SIGs) for production of guidelines, white papers and models (both on twinning and IWRM) • Supply of grants for supporting staff mobility (according to rules defined by SIG) • Implementation of an IT infrastructure for communication (collaborative work, news dissemination, webconferences, ...) and knowledge management

7. Special Interest Groups - SIGs • SIG Twinning : • promotion of twinning agreements between BO; • setting of operating rules for profitability of the exchanges. • SIG Mobility : • organising financial support of the project to the mobility of BO professionals; • delivering allowances when all criteria are fulfilled. • SIG Dissemination : • knowledge management from research and from twinning activities, • identification / implementation of diffusion ways (including e learning) ; • SIGs on IWRM topics : later on, to promote exchanges on the practices identified in BO-members

8. SIG Twinning SIG Mobility SIG IWRM SIG Dissemination Models, rules, recommendations, reports, practices, seminars MoU the entry point Staff Mobility Efficient Twinning

9. Facts and figures • A core group of 17 participants (actual contractors) as the Steering Committee of the project • Participation to the SIGs : open to all MoU signatories (other Basin Org., Administrations, NGOs, Research teams, Universities, SMEs, …) - objective = 150 members

10. Facts and figures • Boosting at least 25 to 30 agreements based on SIG recommendations during the 4-year project • Mobility grants for 60 missions / year during periods of 1 week - 2 months (120 man-months) open to BO - MoU signatories (practitioners) • Link with other twinning-related FP6 projects (cluster)

11. Duration : 4 years (Starting date : January 1st, 2004) • Budget : EUR 900.000 • Supported by the European Commission - DG Research under 6th Framework Program

12. Project advancement • TWINBASINXN WebSite : www.twinbasin.org

13. Project advancement • 1st Call for Proposals • 5 twinnings supported through 1st Call (March 2005)

14. Project advancement • 2nd Call : 9 requests approved in September 2005

15. Project advancement • 1st and 2nd Call for proposals • 14 on-going twinnings (more than 50 missions) • 26 Basin Organisations • 17 countries • Various and varied topics related to IWRM • - FWD implementation • - economical and institutional aspects • - hydrobiology & hydrology, • - coastal waters’ management, • - basin valorisation by tourism, • - etc.

16. REQUIREMENTS • Define a twinning : two basin organisations • Sign a twinning agreement • Sign Project MoU • Submit a Program of exchanges (missions)

17. 1. Two « Basin Organisations » • Public organizations with legal existence, statutes and own budget: • applying or being interested in applying integrated water management at river basin level; • even better if (but not compulsory) : • associating administrations and local authorities, as well as users from the various sectors, • having specific budgetary resources, through the application of "user-polluter-pays" principle. Including organizations managing large national, federal or transboundary river basins

18. 2. Twinning Agreement 1. Identifying a good cooperation between two river basin organisations 2. Establishing specific points of interest and topics in order to : • Exchange knowledge, learn from each other discussing problems; • Improve expertise; • Foster effectiveness of integrated water management within organisation; • Improve overall operation of your institutions; • Realise capacity building.

19. 3. Sign the MoU • If you want to participate actively to make progress in the filed of IWRM mainly through twinning of basin organisations, • If you have an interest in the deployment of IWRM practices and to help to bridge the gap between RESEARCH and actual IMPLEMENTATION of IWRM principles… • It is a voluntary agreement with no legal obligation.It represents a public commitment to respect certain principles and to work toward common goals

20. 4. A program of missions • Generally One or Two weeks duration • Focused on IWRM : • legal and institutional frameworks, • economic and financial issues, • planning aspects, • technical issues (information systems for instance), communication, • awareness raising, public participation, • capacity building and educational actions.

21. Financial Support from Twinbasin For each mission : • Travel Cost : limited to 1000 Euros (Plane ticket in economic class; • Per diem : 70 Euros. • Extra costs are to be covered by twinners (co-financing); • Reimbursed costs (no advance payment).

22. Request form : a program of missionsReporting Guidelines Illustration on Website

23. Approval Procedure

24. To receive financial support

25. WELCOME ON BOARD

26. Promoting Twinning of River Basins for Developing • Integrated Water Resources Management Practices www.twinbasin.org a.bernard@oieau.fr 10th January 2006