The project “Water Negotiations and Investment Planning Support” is financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and managed by AKUM on behalf of the Albanian Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy. Its aim is to develop a coherent programme of actions that will ultimately lead to Albania being able to fulfil the obligations of EU membership in regard to water supply, urban waste water collection and treatment and sewage sludge management.

The key issue, as with all policy implementation planning at national level, is how to reconcile the aspirations of Albania and the resource demands of EU membership, on the one hand, with the very real constraints that apply, on the other hand. Such constraints include human resource capacity, sustainable institutional capacity, financing and revenue generation potential, the availability of time for adequate preparation of institutional reforms and infrastructure developments, also the need to estimate with reasonable accuracy how long necessary actions are likely to take as a consequence. The project addresses not only the more obviously necessary technical and legal actions, but also the overarching policy coherence considerations that ultimately make the difference between success and failure. Throughout the entire implementation of the  project we aspire to take a pragmatic look at the compromises that need to be made in order to achieve such reconciliation. 

by S. R. Brown, Team Leader, “Water Negotiations and Investment Planning Support” project (AKUM/SIDA01)

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