Water and Environment Support for the Mediterranean preparing a regional event on water accounting

The EU funded “Water and Environment Support (WES) in the ENI Southern Neighbourhood Region” is a regional project that aims at protecting the environment and improving the management of scarce water resources in the Mediterranean region. This new project capitalizes on previous successful EU funded programmes like SWIM-Horizon 2020. The WES Partner Countries, where most activities will be implemented, are Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Libya, Palestine and Tunisia. Regional activities of the project are also open for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mauritania, Montenegro and Turkey. The first WES regional training on Water Accounting was originally scheduled to take place in June 2020 in Athens, Greece. Due to the current Covid-19 crisis, it was decided to organise an online training with twice weekly sessions in September and October. The purpose is to introduce water accounting as a tool to achieve integrated water governance and a sustainable water balance and to reflect the important role of accounting in planning, in assessing water resources and uses and in providing a framework for the development of indicators that could feed into the water related SDG 6 target (Clean water and sanitation). The activity is in line with the Water Financing Strategy of the UfM and is closely connected with the UfM Mediterranean Water Knowledge Platform. It will refer to the UN System of Environmental Economic Accounting for water (SEEA-water) and will ensure complementarity with the ENI SEIS II South Support Mechanism (Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) principles and practices in the ENP South region) which aims at improving the availability and access to relevant environmental information to the benefit of effective and knowledge-based policy making.

Participants will have the opportunity to:

1) Get a comprehensive introduction to the overall concept of water accounts (environmental and economic components) and its different approaches (e.g. FAO, EU);

2) Learn about the benefits of water accounting and the use of water accounting outputs (e.g. assessment, planning, policy decision, UN SDG process);

3) Get familiar with the Physical Flow accounts and Physical Assets accounts, using the UN System of Environmental Economic Accounting for Water;

4) Get introduced to the economic accounts using the UN System of Environmental Economic Accounting for Water;

5) Review data needs and requirements for water accounting on the basis of UN International recommendation for Water Statistics (IWRS) and the role of the different institutions in water accounting and data collection;

6) Explore the practical use of water accounting through countries' case studies (preferably from the MENA region);

7) Implement rapid water accounting practical exercises;

8) Discuss real situations in their own countries where water accounting can be implemented