The European Water Partnership has been established in 2006, borne of two major initiatives in the European water sector: the Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform (WSSTP) and the European Regional Process, which produced the European position at the fourth World Water Forum in Mexico in March 2006.

An overview of the activities of the EWP in 2006 can be downloaded here.

       

The Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform 

The WSSTP was set up as a consequence of the European Environmental Technology Action Plan, which was adopted by the European Commission in 2004. This European initiative is open to all stakeholders involved in European water supply and sanitation. The participants in the platform produced a common vision document for the whole European Water Industry together with a strategic research agenda . Work is ongoing on the implementation plans for the short, medium and long run. The WSSTP contributes to:

• The competitiveness of the European Water Industry (Lisbon Strategy).
• Solutions to European water problems.
• Reaching the Millennium Development Goals.

The European Regional Process

During the European Regional Process a large number of organisations and individuals worked together to produce the European Regional Document  for the fourth World Water Forum in 2006.  Partners of the EWP, among which the aforementioned WSSTP, contributed extensively to this process. The objective of this regional document was to provide insights into the problems and challenges facing the European Water Sector as well as giving some possible solutions. The main conclusions of the Regional document are:

• The value of water is largely underestimated.
• The challenges are enormous: the effects of climate change, reaching the Millennium Development Goals, emerging threats, legislation, ageing infrastructure, etc.
• Water related knowledge is scattered across a fragmented sector and there is immense unexploited European potential for the development of efficient and competitive new solutions.
• The European strategy should harness a significant range of expertise, technology and resources available among users and other actors including companies, government regulators, public entities, NGO’s, research institutes and consumer organisations.