Water Governance in Europe & CIS

Objective: The project is designed to enhance support for the public participation in environmental governance component of the GEF PDF-B project Reducing Trans-boundary Degradation of the Kura-Aras River Basin. The objectives are to increase the capacity of these local communities to manage water resources in a sustainable way through improved coordination and targeted educational opportunities. This will be achieved through organisation of meetings of NGOs and civil society organisations (CSO) and formalisation of the NGO/CSO participation through formation of the NGO Forum to advise the project and create cross-border linkages, inclusion of stakeholder involvement mechanisms for identifying and designing pilot projects targeted at public involvement, and support for the region-wide stakeholder advisory group to the Trans-boundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) and Strategic Action Process (SAP), which are to be developed within the framework of the GEF/PDF-B project.

Linkages will be sought with on-going community programmes at the sub-basin level implemented by USAID and Eurasia Foundation.

• Activity 1: Creation of a region-wide NGO forum to provide an opportunity for local and national NGOs that focus on water management, environment, development and sustainability issues in the Kura and Aras river basins to meet together to create a region-wide network that shares information, missions and objectives with one another.
• Activity 2: Development of pilot projects with emphasis on public involvement, with the objective to help develop strong public involvement in the full GEF project at the design stage, while utilizing the educational opportunities inherent in the pilot project involvement.
• Activity 3: Support of a regional Stakeholder Advisory Group to provide input into the TDA-SAP process.

UNDP Country Offices; Eurasia Foundation; USAID and other projects in the South Caucasus