IAWD works on building a Regional Water Operators Partnerships Platform for South East Europe. Donors and Members are gathering. Please come on board, too!

As reported before, IAWD has entered a cooperation with UN-Habitat/GWOPA, the Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance - an international network that supports water operators through peer support exchanges between two or more partners in WOPs, Water Operators' Partnerships.

Over the last 15 years, GWOPA has demonstrated the effectiveness of the peer-support approach in over 470 WOPs worldwide, building a robust network of nearly 150 institutional members and partners, along with more than 1,500 individual members.

IAWD is proud to contribute to strengthening GWOPA's regional structures. Our efforts are focused on establishing a WOP platform for South East Europe, and activities in this regard are gaining significant momentum.

In May, we hosted an introductory webinar that attracted 30 water utility managers, professionals, IAWD utility members, and GWOPA members. The webinar highlighted the planned WOP SEE platform and showcased best practice examples of WOP platforms from other regions.

Additionally, a session on “Utility cooperation in the Danube region and beyond” was held during the Utility Benchmarking Program workshop of the Danube Hub in late May. This session featured case studies on EU WOPs, presented by Aqua Publica representative Marine Boulard and the Hungary-Pakistan WOP example introduced by Rita Studnicki from Budapest Waterworks.

Recently, a donor and IFI meeting was held in conjunction with the Danube Water Forum. The meeting elicited very positive reactions from potential partners interested in financing futureWOP SEE activities.

GWOPA's Institutional Membership growth is crucial for attracting donor and IFI support. We kindly remind you that GWOPA institutional membership is free of charge. If you have not yet joined, now is the perfect time to do so. Simply follow the link below to apply.

In addition, you can think about individual GWOPA Membership granting you access to the Global WOPs Community, a global online community with over 1,500 water and sanitation practitioners from around the globe. We are working on the creation of a regional group for south east European members of the community.

The momentum to establish the WOP SEE is building up rapidly. Stay tuned for more updates!