Water integrity is “the adherence of water actors and institutions to the water governance principles of transparency, accountability and participation, based on core values of honesty, equity and professionalism”, as defined by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), which leads the Programme. With corruption being detrimental to water resources’ sustainable management and water services’ provision, by reducing economic growth, putting projects at risk, discouraging investments, hindering poor people’s access to clean water and adequate sanitation - thus violating human dignity and increasing health risks, water integrity critically contributes to achieving a water wise world resistant to corruption. In this context, the UfM endorsement reflects the importance of water integrity acknowledged by the governments’ as well as their support to tackling the issue.
The “Water Integrity Capacity Building Programme for the MENA Region” aims to improve transparency and accountability practices in water management by addressing poor governance structures, increasing water demand, low levels of trust among the parties sharing the same water resources and limited institutional mechanisms for applying Integrated Water Resources Management principles; factors that all lead to chronic water stress in the region. The first phase of the programme will be implemented over a 4-year period (2014-2017) in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia. Endorsement letters have been provided at high level, by the respective Ministries competent on water in the 5 partner countries.
During the first year of implementation, national water integrity risk assessments were conducted through desk reviews, face-to-face semi-structured interviews and national consultation workshops to validate and rank integrity risks, target groups and capacity needs. The results and key messages of these assessments will be compiled in a regional report. The training material of the SIWI’s overall programme on Water Integrity was adapted to the context of the MENA region and a training of trainers, hosted by GWP-Med, took place on December 1-5, 2014 in Tunis, Tunisia, aimed at providing trainers from the participant countries with capacity on water integrity issues. During 2015, the Programme will focus on intensive trainings of the identified target groups in the five countries - water managers at national and operational level, civil society and women, aimed at equipping participants with tailor-made pro-integrity tools and hands-on methodologies. On January 14-15, 2015 the first regional training on water integrity was held, back-to-back with the 3rd Arab Water Week, in Jordan.
GWP-Med is a core partner in the ’Water Integrity Capacity Building Programme for the MENA Region’ led by SIWI and supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). The implementing partners include the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Integrity Action.