« Integrated resources management and water demands » one of the seven priority action fields of the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development
Mandate & objectives

Plan Bleu was asked by the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention with monitoring of the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development adopted in November 2005 (Extract of the MSSD relating to integrated resources management and water demands) that integrated resources management and water demands is the first priority action field. The Plan Bleu will have to gather together, document and diffuse indicators, to carry out more in depth analysis, to pinpoint good practices, to share experiments in the field of water demand management and to organize the 3rd regional workshop under the aegis of the Mediterranean Commission of Sustainable development (MCSD).

Activities objectives :

• to establish the balance sheet of the progress made with to help in particular of indicators
• to establish the detailed balance sheet of the progress made as regards water demand management (WDM):
• performances comparison
• examples of good practices
• instruments implementation
• obstacles met
• to allow a regional sharing experiments
• to propose directions to take:
• to accelerate integration of the WDM in the various policies (water, environment, development, co-operation)
• to work out and implement efficiency plans
• to improve the system of progress monitoring - evaluation

 

Activities and timetable:

To cover these assignments, the Plan Bleu has:

An expert meeting was held last September 2005 with its regional partners and some volunteer countries (Morocco, France, Tunisia & Turkey). the purpose of this meeting was to help Plan Bleu with better specifying objectives, contents, organization and activities calendar 2006-2007 on water.

Technical experts committee

• to prepare activities work plan (September 2005)
• terms of reference of national reports (April 2006)
• structuring final workshop (September 2006)

Complementary indicators monitoring of the MSSD

• selection
• methodological files (April 2006)
• documentation (January 2007)

Regional studies (December 2006)

• virtual water in Mediterranean region
• international co-operation and development assistance in the field of water in the Mediterranean region
• impacts of the common agricultural policy and its reform on the water demand

National expertise in the volunteer countries (January 2007)

• starting from the indicators analysis, principal evolutions of the country situation
• progress made or possible as regards efficiency
• WDM instruments
• examples of good practices

Regional workshop (March 2007)

• devoted to the follow-up of progress and the promotion of the WDM policies
• questions tackled in priority:
• Factoring natural water needs for ecosystems into policies;
• Factoring WDM into agricultural policies;
• Factoring WDM into urban (including tourism) and industrial (including energy) water management;
• Factoring WDM into water policies: importance to supply policies, importance to integrated water resource management policies;
• Factoring WDM into co-operation and development aid policies.
• Call for papers launched in March 2006

Synthesis

• Presentation and discussion of the work results at the MCSD meeting in 2007
• Drafting the final report (2nd half of 2007)

Contact
Mohammed BLINDA: Phone (direct): + 33 (0) 4 92 38 71 49, Email: mblinda@planbleu.org
Gaëlle THIVET: Plone (direct): + 33 (0) 4 92 38 71 37, Email: gthivet@planbleu.org