10-11 December 2011 Almaty, Kazakhstan
The Council Meeting was hosted by CWP Kazakhstan. The RC meeting was attended by all eight Council members and some regional TEC members from all eight countries, and regional Secretariat. The following issues were discussed during meeting:
The Maltese Islands have limited freshwater resources and depend heavily on desalination. Therefore there is an evident need to mobilise non conventional Water Resources (NCWR) in order to secure water availability and facilitate sustainable development.
The total length of rivers and canals reaches the length of 44,943 km. The largest river is the Danube and the longest is the Vah (367.2 km).
Romania's water resources, being formed of surface waters – inland rivers, lakes and reservoirs, the Danube River – and groundwater are relatively poor and unequally distributed in time and space.
Landlocked Hungary is situated within the heart of the Danube Basin. With few exceptions all rivers come from outside the national borders.
Estonia lies along the Baltic Sea, just south of Finland and has a climate of icy, snowy winters and long light summers.
Located in the Baltic Sea Basin, Poland has a mean annual water resources per capita of approximately 1,600m3, almost three times less than the mean value for Europe.
The DIKTAS Project (2010 – 2014) is initiated by the aquifer-sharing states and is a full-size GEF regional project, implemented by UNDP and executed by UNESCO. The activities of the project focus on Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro. Several other countries and international organizations have also joined this challenging project and provide valuable contribution to realisation of its objectives.
West Africa now has 12 Country Water Partnerships (CWP). All ECOWAS countries have one except The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In 2009 contacts were established with these countries and strong demand had been expressed to assist in the implementation of the CWP in each country.