9th Meeting of the UNECE Monitoring and Assessment Working Group

The annual meeting of the Working Group, consisting of representatives of the Parties to the UNECE Water Convention and international and non-governmental organizations with the status of observers or guests, was held in the Palace of Nations, in Geneva (Switzerland), on June 16-18, 2008.Within the introductory part of the meeting, a seminar on monitoring and assessment of transboundary water in the UNECE region was held, where a number of presentations on regulatory framework (EU WFD and the UNECE Water Convention), as well as the experiences from UNECE countries, were delivered.

A key topic of the Working Group meeting was the preparation of the Second Assessment of Transboundary Rivers, Lakes and Groundwaters in the UNECE region for the next ministerial conference »Environment for Europe«, to be held in Astana (Kazakhstan), in 2011.

Within the session on the pilot projects on transboundary rivers, the Secretary of the Sava Commission, Dr Dejan Komatina, presented a proposal of the pilot project on the Sava river basin, as agreed at the 8th Meeting of the Working Group. The project proposal was accepted and further steps related to seeking financial resources for the realization of the project were agreed.