Brazil : National Water Agency / IOWater - Signing of a new cooperation agreement

On last 11 June, in the IOWater office in Paris, Mr. José Machado, President-Director of ANA (Agência Nacional de Aguas) and Mr. Jean-François Donzier, General Manager of the International Office for Water, signed an agreement aiming at intensifying technical cooperation and the exchange of experience between both institutions.

ANA is responsible for implementing the National Water Policy and strengthening the National Water Management System in Brazil; IOWater will provide its expertise on the institutional and technical aspects of integrated water management, more particularly as responsible for the Permanent Technical Secretariat of the International Network of Basin Organizations (INBO) and privileged operator of the French Ministries for Foreign Affairs and of Ecology and Sustainable Development.

The cooperation program, signed for 5 years, will prioritize the following topics:
* Strengthening of the Brazilian Basin Organizations for better guaranteeing integrated water management;
* Experimentation of management instruments and mechanisms in a pilot basin, and dissemination of the obtained results through training activities;
* Support to the design and implementation of the Brazilian National Water Information System, mainly on data management, creation of databases, production of indicators for evaluating the efficiency of the actions undertaken, processing of information and methodologies for supporting decision-making;
* Operation of Basin Agencies, their departments, boards of directors, technical teams, as well as Basin Committees… with emphasis on:
- Taxes for water uses;
- Planning and programming of actions;
- Participation of the users and the civil society in the decision-making processes;
* Training and Human Resources Management and participation in the development of a specialized training system in Brazil.