Highlights

CMI and Plan Bleu facilitate discussion on Water Demand Management options for local governments – Tunis, February 19-20, 2014

Local governments, especially municipalities, are on the frontline for the provision of basic services in water, energy and transport, while in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries they often lack funding, institutional capacity and human resources for delivering appropriate levels of service and meet citizens’ needs, especially for water.

With an aim to improve capacities of local technicians and decision-makers, CMI and Plan Bleu in partnership with SONEDE (the National Water Utility in Tunisia) and the Mediterranean Water Institute, organized a workshop on “Decision-making tools for local governments on Water Demand Management options” where the economic approach to WDM was applied to local contexts and situations in the Mediterranean. This workshop fell in line with a Plan Bleu’s 2013 study carried out in the area of Sfax, Tunisia, as a pilot site, which focused on Cost-Benefit Analysis of a range of WDM options, including short- and long-term environmental and social impacts as well as opportunity costs and transaction costs.

The workshop’s objectives were to share and promote the methods developed in the study, and to present the findings of the study; to validate the economic analysis of selected WDM options in the context of the Sfax area; to discuss the results of the study based on the knowledge and experience of the participants; and define key messages to be presented in a guidebook for local governments throughout the Mediterranean. It gathered around 20 national and international experts, researchers and practitioners from the public sector, utilities, and the civil society. As part of the workshop, SONEDE kindly led a field trip to the drinking water production facility of Ghdir El Golla serving the Greater Tunis area. See more on: http://bit.ly/1lnKKXi