The Center Development Agency (Center RDA) held the 5th Regional Planning Workshop on Water Supply and Sanitation Sector in the Center Development Region.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction (MRDC), Ministry of Environment (ME), LPA, Center RDA, representatives of water service providers in the Center Region, representatives of GIZ, NGOs, APA students.
The objective of the workshop was to present the current situation of Regional Sector Program development on the WSS sector, the types of possible project concepts, to present the project sheet template and conduct a practical exercise for development of a possible project concept and filling in of this sheet.
The workshop is held within the series of regional planning workshops for WSS sector, as since 2010 the North, Center and South Development Regions have been actively involved in the initial regional development processes, led by the Regional Development Councils (RDC) and the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). This is part of the regional policy developed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction.
At the regional level, a streamline of the public Water Supply and Sanitation public services is expected, including optimization of the quality level of these services through their modernization in line with the European standards, as well as gradual linking of these services to the national systems.
Against this background, the “Modernization of Local Public Services” Project, Intervention Area II, “Regional Planning and Programming” comes to provide support to the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction (MDRC) and Center RDA in the launch of the regional planning process for the WSS in the Center region, by implementing the participatory principle. This process focuses on involvement of working group representatives and other stakeholders in decision-making on the desired level of services, under specialized workshops. These were conducted in the Center region and aimed to develop the regional and local sector planning capacities.
In December 2012 the first workshop in our region was conducted, aiming to introduce the regional sector planning process to participants. In March 2013 the second workshop was held, aiming to confirm the data on the current situation in WSS sector and develop the vision on the level of water and sanitation networks organization and management at the regional level by 2018 in a participatory manner. In July 2013 the Workshop 3 was held, where the materials on the existence of water sources in the regions and the planning exercises in each rayon were presented. Workshop no. 4 on the regional planning in the WSS sector was held in October 2013, and focused on finalization of the sectoral plans, presentation of rayonal sheets initiated under Workshop no. 3 and additional information received from the rayons, presentation of forecasts on WSS service development by 2020, discussion of gender issues in the WSS sector and identification of risks and sustainability of possible project concepts in the WSS sector. Workshop no. 5 aimed to present the integrated concept for the WSS systems, the PPCs selection criteria and to present the possible project concept (PPC) sheet template. The last workshop in this cycle will be conducted in April.
