Euwi - European Water Initiative

The objectives of this partnership are to generate the momentum for fulfilling the following development goals:

• To contribute to the Millennium Development Goals on water and sanitation;
• To develop integrated water resources management and water efficiency plans in all countries by 2005, including, where applicable, coordination in transboundary water resources;
• To ensure that the action programmes to achieve these targets balance human water needs with those of the environment.

This is being done through the following activities:

• Create a joint platform for improved coordination and communication on water related development assistance in order to increase transparency, streamline existing and future development activities and ensure more effective ODA.
• Develop joint action programmes to improve water governance and to achieve the stated targets on water supply, sanitation and water resources management.
• Support the establishment and strengthening of river and lake basin organizations and appropriate legal frameworks.
• Increase the transfer of knowledge and know-how and improve the knowledge base through institutional capacity building and targeted research programmes.
• Encourage the development of innovative financing mechanisms and develop a set of principles on user and private sector finance to maximise public funds, minimise risk and attract private sector investment and involvement.
• Develop financially sustainable strategies that work towards sector wide approaches and budget support mechanisms, and that include the implementation of policies on cost recovery which are sensitive to the needs of the poor.

Following the Johannesburg Summit, the EU Water Initiative established two working groups on water in Africa to implement the EU-Africa Strategic Partnership on Water Affairs and Sanitation. One focused on Water Supply and Sanitation and the other on Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). They were merged into the Africa Working Group (AWG) in 2006.

In the aim of seeking the closest contact as possible to the African side of EUWI an explicit link was made to the Technical Advisory Committee of the African Ministerial Council on Water (AMCOW – TAC). Thus five AMCOW-TAC members are formerly acting as the liaison with the Working Group, each representing one of the five sub-regions of Africa.