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LDK was awarded recently by the European Commission a service contract under the name Sustainable Water Integrated Management – Support Mechanism (SWIM-SM), of a budget of 6.7 m Euros. LDK is leading an international consortium of consultancies, NGOs and ministries, including DHV, one of the leading advisories on water issues from the Netherlands, the Mediterranean Branch of Global Water Partnership (a leading NGO dealing with water management) as well as the ministries of Energy and Climate Change of Greece, the Tunisian Water Ministry and the Lebanese Water and Energy Ministry.
The beneficiary countries are Algeria, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia.
The overall objective of SWIM-SM is to actively promote the extensive dissemination of sustainable water management policies and practices in the region of its implementation, in the context of increasing water scarcity, combined pressure on water resources from a wide range of users, and desertification processes, in connection with climate change.
SWIM’s specific objectives comprise the following:
- To draw the attention of Partner Countries' decision-makers and stakeholders on existing and forthcoming threats on water resources, on the necessity to adopt a more appropriate water consumption and water use model, as well as on the existence of solutions to tackle the problem;
- To support Partner Countries in designing and implementing sustainable water management policies at the national and the local levels, in liaison with existing international initiatives in the area concerned;
- And to contribute to ensuring institutional reinforcement and the development of the necessary planning and management skills, in line with Horizon 2020 objectives, and facilitate know how transfer.
The objectives will be pursued with a view to addressing the four interlinked issues referred to in the new UfM Strategy for Water in the Mediterranean (i.e. water governance, water and climate change, water financing and water demand management and efficiency, as well as non-conventional resources) and the three sources of pollution (municipal waste, municipal wastewater, industrial emissions) of the Horizon 2020 Initiative to De-Pollute the Mediterranean. Operational linkages with the objectives of the Mediterranean Component of the EU Water Initiative (MED EUWI) will be also secured.
SWIM comes at a critical time, when Integrated Water Resources Management, combined with the pressures climate change imposes, is a matter of the utmost importance on both local and regional levels. The EC, through its H2020 Initiative has aimed to contribute significantly to the de-pollution of the Mediterranean and with SWIM it complements H2020 by addressing in particular water issues. This project has a regional scope and the impact of its activities, either regional or national, shall add value and complement regional processes. SWIM aims at supporting water governance and mainstreaming by promoting sustainable and equitable water resources management to become a prominent feature of national development policies and strategies (agriculture, industry, tourism, etc).
