Our project in Moldova resulted from the desire to go beyond punctual actions by establishing true project management capabilities that join upstream local actors and the State to ensure the sustainability of local water and sanitation management and water quality over time using governance tools. Since 2006, we have led many activities in Moldova, such as the recent construction of sanitary blocks and Ecosan toilets in the schools of three villages of the Nirnova river basin. The actions taken are meant to durably improve and ensure access to water and sanitation in the Nirnova valley villages. Focusing on the 31 villages of the Nirnova basin, divided into two Raions: Nisporeni and Hincesti, the project is structured around three objectives, namely:

• Develop infrastructure that was identified through the technical diagnosis of the territory to improve access to drinking water and sanitation;
• Include the development of these infrastructures in a territorial basin approach through the definition of a project for the organization of governance and hydraulic installations guidelines;
• Formulate a coherent overall hydraulic program on the basin at the end of the project.

Axe 1 : Infrastructure development

With regard to the proposals from the technical and institutional diagnosis made during the first phase of the project, as well as the exchanges that took place on the occasion of the first Mayors’ Platform in Strasbourg in March 2018, it is a matter of developing several concrete and feasible actions. These actions cover the issues in their entirety and will lead to complementary results where they will take place:

• Implementation of protection measures for captation points in the Hincesti and Nisporeni Raions;
• Implementation of a controlled water consumption project in the Cateleni village;
• Establishment of a reed filtering plant in the Nemteni village.

The technologies used for these infrastructures will be adapted to local realities and always used in an environmental protection approach.

Axe 2 : Good governance

To ensure sustainability and ownership of the project by the beneficiaries, the implementation of infrastructure in the villages must be coupled with the development of an effective and adapted management and governance system. The ultimate goal is to establish an implicit inter-communality through the creation of an association, bringing together the mayors of the basin’s villages, capable of becoming future project managers. At the same time, we will launch with our partners a reflection on the operator responsible for providing Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Services (DWSS) to the municipalities of the basin. With a structural reform currently underway in Moldova, it will be necessary to define the best way to link the technical operator and the association of municipalities with political authority. In parallel, the institutional diagnosis has allowed to set the framework of Moldovan sectoral policies in force in the DWSS sector, the project will ensure to have the support of local and national institutional actors, in order to be in line with Moldovan development policies.

Axe 3 : Capitalization

In parallel with these capacity-building and infrastructure-building actions, it will be necessary to formulate, in close partnership with the actors involved, a more comprehensive hydraulic program covering the entire Nirnova basin and, ideally, mobilizing more ambitious means. Drawing on the Basin’s Mayors Association, it will serve as a pilot program in Moldova and will be “replicable” for other basins in its approach and methods. It will also aim to inspire water policies in Moldova through an iterative approach between the State's definition of water policy and the concrete implementation by elected officials in the Nirnova basin. Our approach in Moldova is local, multi-stakeholder and long-term. We will continue to build partnerships and involve local community actors in our efforts to improve access to drinking water and sanitation in the basin.

Thanks to our partners

With the support of : Apele Moldovei Agency, L’Agence de l’eau Artois Picardie, l’Agence de l’eau Rhin-Meuse, Moldova’s Ministry of agriculture, regional development and environment, Hincesti Raion, Nisporeni Raion, ENGEES, GESCOD, the French Embassy in Moldova, SDEA and the Swiss Agency for Developement and Cooperation.

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