Steering Committee meeting of EUWI National Policy Dialogue in Moldova

The Republic of Moldova became a Party to the Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes on 15 December 2005. As the country faced difficulties in complying with the Protocol’s basic provisions, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and UNECE implemented during 2009–2010 a project on “Setting of targets and target dates under the Protocol on Water and Health in the Republic of Moldova” (hereinafter 1st UNECE-SDC project). As a result of this project, on 20 October 2010, the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Health signed the Order No. 91/704 on the approval of the list of targets and target dates for the implementation of the Protocol on Water and Health.

In order to assist the Republic of Moldova in implementing the adopted targets and targets dates, the 2nd UNECE-SDC project titled “Implementation of targets and target dates set out in the Order of the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Health of 20 October 2010 to implement the Protocol on Water and Health in the Republic of Moldova” was launched in 2012 and will run until the end of 2015.

The elaboration of a concise Action Plan defining specific activities to be carried out to achieve the targets and target dates, including financial requirements (and the sources of finance) and human resources is the core expected output of the project. There are seven other project outputs, which cover public awareness activities, training of water operators, elaboration of norms and standards for small-scale installations and others.

This work is being carried out in connection with the National Policy Dialogue on Integrated Water Resources Management in the Republic of Moldova as well as in close coordination with the National Policy Dialogue on Water Supply and Sanitation led by OECD.

The NPD on WSS also started in 2006. Its first phase (2006–2007) was devoted to developing a National Financing Strategy for Urban and Rural WSS in the Republic of Moldova. This output helped to identify the need to revise the governmental strategy for WSS, taking into account financial aspects. The dialogue process in 2006–2007 was supported by EC/AIDCO and the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

The second phase of the NPD on WSS (2009–2010) was devoted  to developing a mid-term Action and Investment Plan as a tool to operationalize the implementation of the Financing Strategy and as a realistic mid-term building block of the revised  Government strategy for WSS. In this phase, the dialogue  was supported by EC/AIDCO, Austria and the Czech Republic. 

The ongoing third phase of the NPD on WSS (from late 2011) focuses on developing an adaptation strategy for WSS to make it more resilient to climate change, and on sustainable business  models for sanitation in small towns and villages in the Republic of Moldova. The ongoing phase is supported by EC (Directorate General for the Environment and AIDCO) and the OECD/Environmental Action Programme (EAP) Task Force. The NPD on WSS will provide useful inputs to the revised Government strategy for WSS, and to the national adaptation strategy.