MEDWAYCAP

Title and acronym: The MEDiterranean pathWAY for innovation CAPitalisation toward an urban-rural integrated development of non-conventional water resources – MEDWAYCAP

Dates: 1 October 2021 – 30 September 2024

Location: Greece, Italy, Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt, Malta, Palestine 

Source of Funding: funded by the EU under the ENI CBC Med Programme (http://www.enicbcmed.eu/home); the total budget is € € 1.110.975,65, out of which € 999.878,09 as EU funding (90% contribution).

Role of NRD: Project Partner

Project coordinator: Alberto Carletti (acarletti@uniss.it)

About the project:

Why high-level decision makers, water officials in regulation & planning, water managers, universities & research centres, farmers’ organizations, water user associations and economic operators are not joining capacity, competences and resources? Current situation shows weakness in the multi-level governance and law enforcement, in planning, managerial and operational capacities, further than low-level involvement of the stakeholders in the decision-making process.

MEDWAYCAP project face these issues and address these final beneficiaries, contributing to the UfM Water Agenda. Project aims to facilitate general access and promotion of best practices which include the improvement of treated wastewater reuse as a non-conventional water resource (NCWR) that can contribute to mitigating local water shortage.

Beneficiaries will be equipped with state-of-the-art knowledge on NCWR techniques, management, planning and skills to reuse at territorial level for domestic and agricultural purpose thanks to a well organised capitalization platforms for networking and knowledge transfer and a capacity building tool box.

MEDWAYCAP provides a “ready-to-use package” including a place-based analysis of best practices and methodology to foster a multilevel water governance, identifying stakeholders who can contribute to address the recognized challenges (challenge owners) at cross-border and regional level.

Thanks to a creativity-driven innovation participatory approach, “challenge owners” will define a pathway for reaching common goals and establish alliances to guarantee continuity and consistency of outputs and outcomes. These results will be reflected at local level in order to foster NCWR integration into the water governance system and related business opportunities in the context of the circular economy.

EXPECTED CHANGE:

The project focuses on institutional capacity building & people-to-people cooperation to empower local communities, foster skills development & create opportunities for investments & new jobs related to water management at multiple levels (governance, planning, constructions & technical management) in both rural & urban areas. 

The project will involve at least 480 persons (public authorities, water agencies, related industries, NGOs, CBOs, farmer organizations, etc.) during the 20 measures & initiatives to showcase, exchange, test & transfer water supply & demand solutions to end-users in order to improve water use efficiency & quality and use of non-conventional water resources for domestic & agricultural purposes.

A series of tools & techniques are introduced in the project to give “new life” to the capitalised best practices, create job opportunities and a labour force with increased skills ready to access the water labour market. This will be reached through: 

  1. the inventories for business opportunities for NCW solutions in the context of the circular economy (5.1);
  2. workshops & B2B meetings with interested economic operators and leaders of training activities for creating green jobs, to debate & boost sustainability and bring new market dynamics related to the NCW, nature-based solutions and BPs related issues;
  3. National alliances & Initiatives for replicability & investments in sustainable development, evaluating the regional business & financial aspects of replicability & capitalisation; 
  4. The exploitation of financial tools for business & job creation as well as grants for BSOs & NGOs through capitalisation of EC EBSOMED regional project MedaFinance tools.

These activities will contribute to the mid & long term effect of the project and include the improvement of relevant policies & strategies, the development of regional public/private alliances, the exploitation of financial tools for business & job creation and the development of Actions Plans in the targeted area with direct involvement & engagement of local stakeholders.

Through the establishment of an operational framework & efficient capitalization strategy (A.4.1.1) the project will encourage sustainable cross-border synergies among MED regions, with direct involvement of final beneficiaries to match the offered solutions with the real needs of each area and optimize the value & high impact of results..

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

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PARTNERS

Ethniko Kentro Erevnas kai Technologikis Anaptyxis (GR)

Confederation of Egyptian European Business Associations (EG)

Aġenzija għall-Enerġija u l-Ilma (Mt)

Palestinian Wastewater Engineers Group (PS)

Centre de Recherches et Technologies des Eaux (TN)

National Agricultural Research Center (JO)

International Center for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies - Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari (IT)

Euro-Mediterranean Centre for the Sustainable Development (SVIMED) (IT)