1. Foreword

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership launched by the Barcelona Declaration of November 1995 embraces a vast programme of collaboration in a variety of spheres, economic and financial co-operation in particular, and indicates the priority actions for developing Euro-Mediterranean co-operation. Based on the principles of the Rome Charter, a specific chapter of the Declaration is dedicated to water and the guidelines for implementing these actions are outlined therein.

The experience gained from years of intense collaboration within the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and from other projects and developments carried out in the Mediterranean region has emphasised the major importance of water in an environmental and economic context and in all aspects of the development process. Water is a vital resource and has significant social implications in particular in the Mediterranean.

The Stuttgart Conference of the 27 Euro-Mediterranean Ministers of Foreign Affairs (April 1999) reaffirmed the priority of water policy and indicated that the Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference of Turin should lead to recommendations for further operational activities in the water sector.

In Malta (July 1999), the Directors General for Water agreed on the necessity to reinforce the strategy defined during the 1^st Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Local Water Management in Marseilles November 1996 for improving water management in the Mediterranean, as a basis for an action plan for the Partnership. The Action Plan should include those mechanisms and tools necessary to make the programmes operational.

It is in this spirit, considering the numerous priorities identified during the preparatory work for improving water resources management, that this document is being presented at the Conference, with the aim of contributing to improving the sustainable availability of water resources for the economic and social development of our region. We intend to give water management stronger impetus within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, and guide partners and public and private institutions operating in this sector towards a strategy of coherent, ample and participatory implementation.

In this context, it is evident that a complete vision of the many on-going activities or activities planned by international organisations, bilateral co-operation and non-governmental organisations will be useful for rationalising projects, so as to maximise water resources efficiency.

A more significant role could be assigned to certain organisations, making the most of what has been accomplished so far. This is a need dictated by the possible dispersion of interventions and by the call for rationalisation.

To this end, the Action Plan should take full advantage of the potential of the Mediterranean Water Network, explicitly mentioned in the work programme attached to the Barcelona Declaration.

The implementation of a complex and ambitious action plan, commensurate with the important role that water plays for the balanced social and economic development of the Mediterranean region, requires appropriate financial backing. Consequently, greater weight for support should be given within the MEDA to the water sector and wider involvement of other organisations such as the EIB, in co-ordination with other financial institutions such as the World Bank, regional funding authorities and private investors, will be called for.

It will also be necessary to identify the most suitable type of organisation for promoting and co-ordinating the full implementation of the Action Plan within the foreseen calendar, in order to have a point of reference for the Partners and interested parties and to decide which initiatives to implement. This should be done making full use of what has already been achieved within the Euro-Mediterranean framework and by existing structures operating in the Mediterranean.

The present document is the outcome of a drafting process based on the work done by a drafting group that met in Cagliari on 13 and 14 September and on comments from various Partners following the Malta meeting.

The first Mediterranean Water Conference organised on the initiative of the European Commission was held in May 1990 in Algiers. At this conference the Ministers responsible for water of the Mediterranean states adopted the Algiers Declaration to highlight the importance of a common strategy for water management. In particular they stressed the problem of assessing water resources, the importance of economising water, the need for strengthening the institutions, their regulatory framework and financial resources as well as the essential role of international co-operation between countries of the Mediterranean basin in water resources management problems.

The Algiers Conference was followed by the 2^nd Mediterranean Water Conference, organised in October 1992 in Rome on the initiative of Italy and the European Commission. The outcome of this conference was the adoption of the Mediterranean Water Charter in which twelve Mediterranean countries undertook to implement measures concerning water planning and management, regional, international and Euro-Mediterranean co-operation.

In Rome it was also decided to set up the Mediterranean Water Network (MWN). Spain followed up this undertaking, formulating the organisational structure of the network at the Valencia Conference in 1993. The MWN, which comprises among its members also a few countries not belonging to the Euro-Med Partnership, held a Technical Conference in Valencia in 1998. The recommendations and the Action Plan for the next 2 years proposed by this Conference were adopted by the General Assembly of the MWN in Malta on 5^th July 1999.

At the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference in November 1995, representatives of the non-Community Mediterranean countries and the European Union member states adopted the Barcelona Declaration and established the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, which involves a vast and articulated working programme to be conducted in a variety of sectors. A specific chapter devoted to water takes up the principles of the Rome Charter and provides guidelines for its implementation.

In November 1996, on the initiative of France, the 1^st Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Local Water Management was held in Marseilles and resulted in the adoption of the Marseilles Declaration by the Ministers responsible for water recommendations were put forward to the Ministers concerning the management of water for sustainable agriculture and for drinking water and industrial uses, basic and continuing training in the water sector, the strengthening of institutions in this sector. In addition, it was decided at Marseilles to create the first concrete co-operation tool for exchanging information on know-how in water management: Euro-Mediterranean Water management Information system (EMWIS).

The Short and Medium Term Priority Environmental Action Programme SMAP adopted at the Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on the Environment in Helsinki in November 1997 stated that integrated water management is one of the priority fields of action of the Programme.

The 3^rd Euro-Mediterranean Foreign Ministerial Conference held in April 1999 in Stuttgart reaffirmed that water management remains one of the priority areas for Euro-Mediterranean co-operation. It also emphasised the importance of integrating environmental issues.

To maintain continuity with the above initiatives, with a view to supporting the Barcelona process and reinforcing, in terms of concrete actions, what has already been established within EMWIS on the issue of water management in the Mediterranean basin, Algeria and Italy have come forward as promoters of the 2^nd Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Local Water Management, which will be held in Turin on October 18 and 19, 1999.

In the process following up the Turin Ministerial Conference, due consideration should be given to identifying and examining the challenges and problems which may arise in terms of changes in water demand and use due to the possible structural changes in production patterns and organisation of economic sectors such as agriculture, industry, tourism, etc., as the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area develops and becomes a reality. Particular attention should be paid to the overall implications for water management and the need to ensure environmental sustainability in harmony with the socio-economic needs for water.

Following the 1996 Marseilles Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Local Water Management a working group of 10 countries recognised the need for setting up an information processing system that using advanced means of communications enabled existing sources of information to be linked up via a network. This project was named EMWIS (Euro-Mediterranean Water management information system) and was approved by the 27 Directors General for Water during the Naples Conference held in December 1997.

The project created a new mechanism for linking the countries, consisting of national focal points and of a high-speed customised communications network connected to Internet. In this way, updated certified information on "who does what" is made available to policy makers and to different operators involved in water related issues, initially in four priority areas: documentation, training and research, institutions and data handling.

EMWIS is the first concrete Euro-Mediterranean Partnership instrument that enables its 27 partners to use a water resources information network and to exchange certified information through an agreed procedure by means of a communication network linked to Internet at high speed.

The EMWIS is organised as follows:

• A Steering Committee of 10 countries under the chairmanship of Italy with Jordan as co-chairman, will define the main strategies, approve the budgets and the annual and final reports of activities;
• A network of national focal points;
• A technical unit set up by three organisations operating in the field of water resources.

EMWIS is today operational and could contribute within its mandate to broader co-operation on the water issues in the region.

Internationally the importance of integrated water management and the water basin approach has been recognised as the basis for sustainable water management. The UN Convention of non-navigational use of international waters from 1997 and the UN ECE Convention on transboundary watercourses and international lakes from 1992 are important international agreements laying down these principles. The signing in London in June 1999 of a protocol on water and health under the UN-ECE Convention, elaborated in co-operation with the World Health Organisation – Europe, marked an important step towards the implementation of these principles within the northern European region. This protocol requires the establishing of national action plans for provision of safe drinking water and sanitation of sewage and wastewater with a water basin approach. ^*

The Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP)/Blue Plan and its activities over the last twenty years present another important regional contribution on water management. The Blue Plan in particular is entrusted with the elaboration of a Mediterranean "Vision" on water in 2025, in the framework of MEDTAC. The Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development (MCSD) has also included water among its priorities and developed recommendations on the management of the water demand, which were adopted in Tunis (November 1997) by the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention.

The European Union is currently restructuring its water policy along the lines of the UNECE Convention and the expected adoption of a proposed water framework directive in the near future implements the river basin approach within the European Union.

The World Water Council conference on a World Water Vision for 2025 planned for March 2000 and the activities of the Global Water Partnership and its regional technical advisory committees (TACs) in particular the Mediterranean TAC (MEDTAC) mark other important initiatives in the strive towards integrated water management .

Another opportunity to share experience and draw conclusions for further action will be the international water conference, hosted by Germany, in preparation for a review of Agenda 21, chapter 18 in 2002 (Rio+10).