The Danube Water Program and the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River invite everybody with a stake in wastewater treatment to a three-part, one-day online workshop on the financial aspects of improving wastewater management to meet the EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive.

Many countries in the Danube River Basin need to improve their wastewater management significantly to meet the EU water resources protection targets. Reaching the levels of collection and treatment mandated by the EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD) will involve infrastructure investments that place considerable financial and technical strains on utilities and service providers in the region.

In order to bridge existing knowledge gaps and to improve the understanding of the importance of financial sustainability in the operation and maintenance of wastewater services, the World Bank under the Danube Water Program and ICPDR have joined hands to organize a regional one-day knowledge exchange event on "Financial Sustainability of Wastewater Management in Danube region".

This three-part workshop aims at providing government and utility representatives with knowledge and expertise on sustainable modernization efforts in wastewater management sector.

Save the date and join in to learn about:

• the status of financial sustainability of wastewater management in Danube region, based on findings of existing analytical works and recent studies on the topic,
• a way forward to achieve sustainable wastewater management at policy level, based on practical experiences on the national level, including policy and regulatory-related challenges, development of national strategies, tariff setting, financial sustainability, service affordability, etc,
• best practices of sustainable wastewater services development at the utility level, based on experiences from individual utilities or consultants, and focusing on O&M costs, technology choices, and longer-term business and investment planning.

This workshop is open to everybody with and interest in the topic, but focuses primarily on national and local governments, technical management professionals and senior staff of utilities.

It will run online on February 3, 2022, with a summary paper published together with the presentations after the workshop. For more information, please follow the link below.

UPDATE: the Draft Agenda is now available on the event's page below!