9th MENBO General Assembly

Events
MENBO
Statutory
Published

September 27, 2011

MENBO’s 9th General Assembly and the annual EURO-INBO Conference took place 27-30 of September 2011 in Porto (Portugal) on the invitation of the Administração da Região Hidrográfica do Norte (Porto, Portugal). A Liaison Bureau Meeting of MENBO was celebrated 27 September at 15:30.

From 28-30 September more than 200 delegates coming from 42 countries, representatives of governmental administrations in charge of water management, of Basin Organisations, already existing or being created, of interested bi and multilateral cooperation agencies, as well as many observatory organisations, met in Porto (Portugal) on the occasion of the 9th General Assembly of the Mediterranean Network of Basin Organisations and the 9th International EURO-INBO Conference on the Implementation of the Water Framework Directive.

Mr. António Guerreiro de Brito, President of the ARHNorte (Administração da Região Hidrográfica do Norte) in Portugal, was elected new President of MENBO. The General Assembly expressed it’s high gratitude to Mr. Fadi Comair, General Director for Water and Energy and Electricity Resources (Lebanon), MENBO President 2009-2011, for his successful Presidency of the network.

Javier Ferrer, Permanent Technical Secretary of MENBO, and António Brito, new President of MENBO (left)

Javier Ferrer, Permanent Technical Secretary of MENBO, and António Brito, new President of MENBO (left)

António Brito, new President of MENBO, and Fadi Comair, MENBO President 2009-2011 (right)

António Brito, new President of MENBO, and Fadi Comair, MENBO President 2009-2011 (right)

The General Assembly approved the Arno River Basin Authority (Italy) and the ARH Norte (Portugal) as new members and the Land Research Centre (Palestine) as observer of the network.

On 27th of September MENBO celebrated a Liaison Bureau meeting. The presentations given on the occasion of MENBO’s General Assembly, the Liaison Bureau and additional information on MENBO can be downloaded here:

On the occasion of MENBO’s General Assembly some of our network partners got the chance to present their networks and collaboration with MENBO. Additionally a presentation on the MELIA project and MENBO’s role in the project was given. You can find the presentations here:

In five roundtables the Conference treated the following topics:

  1. Water and energy – the dilemmas, costs and benefits.
  2. Experiences on the implementation of the WFD in non-EU countries.
  3. Water governance in transboundary scenarios: Strategic cooperation and twinning among water authorities.
  4. Adapt to long term challenges linked to climate change and prevent extreme phenomena.
  5. Develop new knowledge and know-how on rivers hydro-morphology, restoration and protection of water ecosystems.

Additionally the Conference will served as a preparation meeting for the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille in March 2012.

Download here the Final Programme of the event.

More information on the event can be found here.