3rd Forum on France-Moldova Decentralized Cooperation

On October 4 and 5, we took part in the third forum on France-Moldova cooperation for territories attractiveness, organized by the French Embassy in Chisinau. This event, bringing together the main actors of the Franco-Moldavian cooperation, aimed at informing the different stakeholders about projects in progress on the territory and encourage new cooperation actions. This forum is part of an exchange of good practices and enhances the successful cooperation experiences between the French and Moldovan authorities.

The theme for the 2018 edition of the forum was “Decentralized cooperation, an asset for smart territories in rural areas”. This edition presented the specificities of these spaces in terms of different development policies. It allowed participants to get an overview of the numerous opportunities for action in these areas and to define the conditions for success for any project based on a partnership between French and Moldovan local authorities. Several questions were discussed: what does it mean to make the territories more “intelligent” and to promote development dynamics? how to offer better public services? how to improve people’s standard of living? how to integrate digital technology with development logic? To answer them, workshops and work sessions were organized around 5 action axis: tourism and cultural heritage, waste management, water management, capacity building, new forms of mobilization of actors around local development.

It is within the framework of water management and capacity building that we have been invited to present our action in favor of better governance of water and sanitation in rural areas.

Our president – Antonella Cagnolati – highlighted our commitments for:
– the involvement of civil society.
– a more integrated and intelligent management of the water resource in rural areas.
– the pooling of resources and the intermunicipal management.
– a decentralised approach to cooperation, with representatives of French and Moldovan local authorities around the same table.

The project team particularly insisted on the style of management favored by the project, based on the pooling of resources and inter-municipal management of water and sanitation. We valued the fact that this project is based on a decentralized cooperation approach, bringing together representatives of French and Moldovan local authorities around the same table.

In a second step, we took charge of the “water management” working group to launch a debate on different proposals for solutions for a more integrated and “smart” management of water resources in Moldova’s rural areas. The importance of involving civil society in projects was stressed in particular.

Thanks to our partners !