29 March 2019 | National Implementation team reviews SEIS implementation in Armenia
National Implementation Team of the ENI SEIS II East project which is composed by representatives of various institutions and agencies convened on 29.03.2019 in Yerevan with the main focus on better managing water data and information for underpinning the knowledge-based policy-making. Armenia receives financial and technical supports from the EU commission under the ENI SEIS II East project and EU Water Initiative project to strengthen IT infrastructure, institutional and expert capacities in managing water data and information. US AID provides also support to further improvement with the water cadaster information system of Armenia. Under the lead of A.Ghazaryan, Deputy Minister of Nature Protection of the Republic of Armenia , the National Implementation Team of the ENI SEIS II East project convened to explore potential synergies among these three important project and explore further coordination and collaboration for integrating data, information and assessment in a coherent way to support knowledge-based policy making for managing Armenia’s water resources.
ENI SEIS II East project is supporting the development of water component of the Eco Portal Armenia as single entry point to all available data, information, policy documents, reports and water indicators while EU WI+ is developing water data management system which is an integral part of the overall environmental information system. Further integration is also needed with the Water cadaster information system being currently developed by means of US AID support.
The meeting was also a platform where the key stakeholders presented the state of the inventories in their information systems e.g. Water Committee of RA gave the presentation on irrigation, water supply, sewerage system; Environmental Protection and Mining Inspectorate shared their experiences on data collection of actual water abstraction, water use, water discharge; while ArmState and Hydromet focused on hydrometeorological variables and water balance of Armenia.
Water Resources Management Agency of MNP RA as responsible agency for managing common water database and water caradstre information system the emphasis has been given to the importance of further coordination and cooperation among various water agencies and projects i.e. ENI SEIS II, EU WI+ and US AID. Participants agreed to ensure the further cooperation and coordination and convene again within two week-time to evaluate the state of the art.
Taking into account the continuing institutional changes in the country, it was decided to activate working meetings to ensure continuity of cooperation.
In order to develop specific targeted recommendations for administrative registers, it was decided to study the current state of affairs and relationships within a two-week period for the coordination of further work.