Signature of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) and the International Office for Water (OiEau)

On February 25th 2021, a MoU was signed, through distant means due to sanitary constraints, between Ms. Alexandra Moreira, permanent secretary of the ACTO and M. Eric Tardieu, Général Director of the OiEau. This MoU provides a great opportunity for a strengthened technical cooperation between ACTO and OiEau in the amazonian region.

© OiEau

Both ACTO and OiEau develop actions aimed at promoting integrated management of water resources (IWRM) and are willing to enhance their technical capacities in order to support its implementation by countries of the amazonian region and at the regional level as well. 

This cooperation may cover different field of interest, namely:

• Data & information management and monitoring for decision support systems;
• Technical assistance for capacity building and vocational training for IWRM ;
• Awareness raising and promotion of policy dialog for water management

At first exchanges will focus on water information systems, with a dialog already defined with the BIO-PLATEAUX project ( started in 2019 with different partners from Guyana, Suriname and Brazil) and the Amazionian Regional Observatory (ORA) project.

This cooperation will be part of the operational implementation of the main objective carried by the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, signed on July 3rd 1978 by 8 countries of the Amazonian region (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela, Suriname) targeting sustainable development and the social inclusion of this area and its exceptional ecosystem.

The ACTO was created in 1995 and is in charge of the implementation of the provisions of this Treaty.

One can easily guess that this cooperation between OiEau and ACTO will contribute to win the challenge of integrated water resource management in the lungs of humanty. Indeed the Amazonian region which covers 6% of the earth surface, contains the Amazon river basin, the biggest in the world with 6 144 727 km2, and provides one fifth of the total fresh water to the oceans water. 420 indigeneous people live there, speaking 86 languages and 650 dialects.

For the General Secretary of the OTCA, Ms Alexandra Moreira, "One of the mechanisms for ensuring good water management is the generation of strategic alliances such as the one we are signing today, with entities that have a great deal of experience and technical knowledge in this area, as is the case of OiEau"

“I want to emphasize the work achieved so far by ACTO and OiEau teams to define the outline of our cooperation in the framework of the MoU. It will afford us to develop, among other actions, decision support systems on water and aquatic biodiversity, a key challenge for the IWRM in the Amazon river basin, the biggest of the world.” M. Alain Bernard  - Head of the  Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia Unit of the OiEau.