Dr. Khaled AbuZeid, MEWINA Project Regional Coordinator has participated in the 1st Regional Conference of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) labeled project Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector1 to be held on 28-30 October 2014, in Athens, Greece, in close collaboration with the EU funded Sustainable Water Integrated Management – Support Mechanism (SWIM-SM) project2.

The Conference aimed to reinforce the regional dialogue, set off during the Launching of the UfM project in May 2013, and the sharing of experiences on the water governance and sustainable financing nexus by bringing together targeted Mediterranean stakeholders from within and outside the water sector, including public authorities, civil society and the private sector. Important for launching the implementation of this regional project has been the strategic partnership with the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The steady support, already since 2009, of the GEF/ MAP UNEP MedPartnership programme and the Mediterranean Component of the EU Water Initiative (MED EUWI) has been instrumental for concretizing the project’s line of work.

The Conference had taken stock of the outcomes from the Water Policy Dialogues conducted in Jordan and Tunisia during the first year of the UfM project’s implementation (2013-2014) and had discussed the way forward for the second year. Moreover, the Conference also would benefited from completed and ongoing work on the theme conducted by SWIM-SM, especially in view of the programme’s completion (Dec. 2014) and the potential next phase of work.