European agreement spurs water action in Georgia
STORY OF CHANGE
A SNAPSHOT
In 2020, the global coronavirus pandemic clearly showed the inseparable link between water and public health. From a new awareness of the importance of handwashing to tracking virus DNA in wastewater, the world was reminded that access to clean water underpins good health for people and for nature. GWP’s Country Water Partnership in Georgia participated in designing and implementing the country's engagement with a European protocol for water and health. The protocol has prepared the country to manage current and future crises by creating safer living conditions, while building capacity for joint problem solving.
The Context
In 1999, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe), recognising that millions of people in the European region still did not have access to improved water sources and sanitation, negotiated the Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes. The protocol was the first international agreement of its kind adopted specifically to attain an adequate supply of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation for everyone, paving the way for implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.
The countries (Parties) that agreed to the Protocol had to set national and local targets for the quality of drinking water and the quality of discharges, as well as for the performance of water supply and waste-water treatment, linking social and economic development to the protection of natural ecosystems. They were also required to reduce outbreaks and the incidence of water-related diseases.
The Protocol entered into force on 4 August 2005. At their first meeting (Geneva, 17–19 January 2007), the Parties established the Working Group on Water and Health to be responsible for the overall implementation of the programme of work, including supporting countries in developing appropriate targets and assessing progress. Represented by the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources, Georgia was one of the signatory Parties present at the first meeting. The country was acutely aware of the need for action as it struggled with issues such as outdated water and sanitation systems that jeopardized the safety of drinking water.
Setting targets and review and assessment of progress, as defined in Articles 6 and 7 of the Protocol, are the backbone for action to reach the Protocol’s objectives. The very process of setting targets brings benefits beyond their stated purpose. It creates a platform for cooperation between various stakeholders and different levels of government, as well as for development of concerted national actions. It also provides a framework to analyse national situations and to streamline and harmonize responsibilities and commitments in the areas of water and health. It offers a step-by-step approach to achieving goals and guides authorities in the allocation of resources. Target setting becomes the basis for realistic plans with prioritized time-bound objectives adapted to national situations. Setting targets is also a useful tool in complying with other international commitments.
Guidelines on the Setting of Targets, Evaluation of Progress and Reporting, 2010
GWP'S CONTRIBUTION
Setting targets for implementation of the Protocol at country level involved identifying specific results – such as reducing the occurrence of shigellosis and hepatitis A by 10% – and assigning a timeframe for achieving them.
The national target-setting process allows legal obligations to be tailored to country needs and resources. Georgia had no previous experience in developing such targets. It began the process by putting together a team of high-ranking officials, led by the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources, with representatives from 16 government ministries, state bodies, and NGO representatives, including GWP Georgia, to serve on a national coordination committee/working group.
Since 2010, GWP Georgia and the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources provide the secretariat for the steering committee for the UNECE’s National Policy Dialogue on Integrated Water Resources Management in Georgia. Establishing an intersectoral working group for the target-setting process that involved those responsible for implementing other international commitments was a familiar process. The group began the painstaking task of developing national targets in 2013 with a sub-regional workshop for countries of the Caucasus. GWP Georgia took the lead with UNECE and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in organising the workshop, supported by the GWP Regional Office for Caucasus and Central Asia (CACENA). Concerns expressed at the workshop included the outdated and unsatisfactory sanitary and technical condition of water supply and sanitation systems, failure of most treatment plant systems, and discharge of a significant amount of untreated wastewater into surface water bodies.
The first step in target setting is identification of stakeholders, followed by baseline analysis and prioritisation of problems. When stakeholders had been selected, the working group analysed available data and identified shortcomings over the following months, coming up with a subset of focus areas of relevance to Georgia: drinking water access and quality, control of waterborne diseases, untreated waste discharge, and identification of especially polluted areas. A key management issue was the publication of information about drinking water. GWP Georgia facilitated the multi-stakeholder process for how to make the targets compatible with existing Georgian policy and strategy across sectors.
By 2014, Georgia’s initial Protocol targets had been set for eight areas, but the working group came to realise that existing water projects underway in the country were often working with different data and assumptions. The following years saw more adjustments and learning through collaborative efforts to align these to the Protocol. Additional targets are being developed.
GWP Georgia’s understanding of the importance of stakeholder engagement, gained over years of convening round tables and multi-actor consultations, was used in both organising meetings and in providing a platform to enhance the interactions of agencies with varying levels of interest. Alexander Mindorashvili, the Protocol’s focal point in Georgia’s Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources, attributes the work’s steady progress to the ‘continuous support’ of the Country Water Partnership.
“Getting the right people in the room from the outset is key to moving such a complex process ahead. We had high-level decision-makers at hand. They understood the importance of the task and were willing to support it. This was due in great part to the networking capabilities of the GWP Country Water Partnership.”
RESULTS
As this long process shows, drafting legislation and changing policy takes time and patience. Once adopted, the draft law will still require complementary acts or other pieces of legislation to address all obligations within EU mandates, but the stage is set to improve water resources management and ensure sustainable water use, reduce water resource pollution, and improve water quality and quantity monitoring. Georgia now has a knowledgeable and collaboratively minded set of negotiators to complete the work.
The new law prepares Georgia for the 21st-century management of its water resources, including alignment with the global Sustainable Development Goals. It provides an institutional framework that includes cross-sectoral, ministerial, and local oversight, water quantity and quality monitoring according to EU standards, permits for water abstraction and wastewater discharge, and participatory decision-making. Strategies and by-laws to support the IWRM approach include provisions for flood risk planning and management, fees for abstraction and discharge, pre-treatment of wastewater, and methods to calculate how much water to leave for the natural processes that will provide water for the future.
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