Second phase (2003–2006)

The second phase of EMWIS

A contract was signed between EMWIS and the EC in December 2003 to support this phase (before this date the activities were only financed by France, Italy and Spain). The contractual programme is structured around the following 9 action lines:

•    Coordination with political structures to maintain a high level of commitment within the Euromed countries, including:

• an annual Steering Committee meeting
• an annual Coordination Committee meeting
• an annual conference to promote EMWIS, to review the progress of MEDA-Water projects (and others) and to present the results of thematic studies
• a conference of Euromed water directors to assess progress and validate future developments (achieved end 2005).
  

•    The reinforcement of NFPs to ensure their sustainability through strong national commitment, via:

• an annual training seminar for NFP IT or content managers
• the analysis of national needs and requirements related to National Water Information Systems (possibly including recommendations for funding by international organisations)
• examples of NFP good practices
• direct financial support to NFPs, covering: investment, website translation and some running costs (promotion, training, technical assistance, etc.).

•    The expansion and development of EMWIS services:

• the introduction of the Arabic language
• a synchronised calendar of events and news
• a meta-Crawler.

•    A technical upgrade of the existing system, taking into account state-of-the-art technologies (e.g. XML) and new water information systems under development in the various partner countries, with a view to using the same content for several websites.

•    The operation of Euromed water information services: completion and updates of EMWIS websites, thematic directory (who does what), multilingual water dictionary, electronic flash.

•    The promotion of EMWIS to raise awareness among water stake-holders of the benefits of sharing information and know-how.

•    A thematic analysis oriented towards the areas and themes of the Turin Action Plan, to be presented at annual conferences.

•    The dissemination of the MEDA-Water Programme results, in close cooperation with the European Commission, the programme monitoring team and the Water Facilitators (when they are operational).  

•    Liaison and cooperation with international initiatives to avoid duplication and to develop synergies, especially for the definition of international standards to exchange information in the water sector.

	EMWIS phase II (pdf English)
	SEMIDE phase II (pdf français)