Water Law signature, ChinaThe
accession of Romania to the European Union has led to a dramatic
demand for assistance in achieving compliance with EU legislation
and sector-specific directives. Mott MacDonald has been providing
management support to five groups of Romanian cities as they
deregulate their water supply and wastewater activities – we are
providing capacity building services and programme development in
how to monitor independent service providers with specific
reference to efficiency, cost control and loss reduction, planning
investment programmes and managing tariff changes and cost
recovery.
Furthermore, in order to assist the country’s integration into
structural and cohesion funding, the Group is assisting with the
preparation of Environmental Management Plans. In Malawi
, we
were appointed to the Water Resources Board (WRB) as a follow up to
the introduction of a new Water Resources Policy and Strategy – the
brief was to review the mandate, roles and responsibilities of the
WRB and the kind of support it received from the Ministry of Water
Development in staff support, monitoring networks, data management
and water quality standards.
Our five-person team reviewed the Ministry’s institutional
structure in the light of forthcoming reforms such as
decentralisation and international commitments (eg SADC Protocol on
Shared Water Resources). In effect, our work created a basis for
new forms of water governance in Malawi including the following
programme elements:
- review of current legislation and policies on water resources
management
- organising 10 participatory workshops on water abstraction and
utilisation
- design of national monitoring networks (ware/groundwater)
- review of water quality laboratories
- guidelines for standards in potable, industrial, irrigation
waters and effluent discharge
- support debate on new Catchment Management Authorities
[CMAs]
