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ater

ooperation

, S

ustainability

and

overty

radication

ship the EU’s environment and international development ministers

adopted conclusions highlighting the challenges, objectives and

means of the union’s internal and external water-related activities.

Ministers also renewed their commitment to the EUWater Initiative,

the flagship European international development policy tool in the

field of water and sanitation.

Hungary plays a central role in the implementation of the EU’s

comprehensive development strategy for the entire region: the

Danube Region Strategy, adopted by the union’s leader during the

Hungarian presidency in June 2011. It is a macroregional strategy

of 14 EU, accession and neighbourhood countries situated in the

basin and sub-basins of the Danube River. Its main priorities are

socioeconomic development; the improvement of competitiveness;

environmental management and resource efficiency; security; and the

modernization of transport corridors. These are implemented through

priority areas and concrete actions. Hungary acts as priority area coor-

dinator for two important, water-related topics of the Danube Region

Strategy: water quality and the management of environmental risks.

Understanding that transboundary river basins have great poten-

tial for cooperation irrespective of how geographically distant

they are from each other, Hungary organized the first Asia-Europe

Meeting Sustainable Development Seminar on the Role of Water

in Sustainable Regional Development Strategies in June 2012. The

seminar used the showcase of the Danube Region Strategy and the

Greater Mekong Subregion as a basis for future cooperation and

comprehensive interaction among regional development strategies.

At the seminar, great emphasis was placed on sustainable water

management and the role of water in other development-related

issues, as well as on possible interregional cooperation

and experience sharing between the macroregions of

the Danube and Mekong river valleys.

Naturally, Hungary does not see water as an isolated

subject, but as an integral part of global sustain-

able development policy. Thus in the run-up to the

2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable

Development (Rio+20) Hungary, as a steering commit-

tee member of the Friends of Water Group in New

York, took an active role in promoting water in the

pre-conference political discussions. The group has

organized thematic discussions prior to the Rio+20

conference, with the goal of bringing added value

to formal sustainable development deliberations

through pragmatic and results-oriented presentations.

As co-chair of the United Nations General Assembly

Open Working Group on Sustainable Development

Goals (SDGs), Hungary remains a driver of the elabo-

ration of a water-related SDG. To that end the country

has organized the 2013 Budapest Water Summit, a key

international gathering aiming to shape the content of

a stand-alone SDG on water.

Against this background, it is only natural that water-

related projects have been at the core of Hungarian

international development assistance for decades.

Between 1975 and 1990 experts of the former Water

Resources Management Centre (VIKÖZ, later VGI),

together with Mongolian partners, prepared the Water

The Danube catchment area

The 19 countries of the Danube catchment area have a sophisticated transboundary river basin cooperation system

Source: INTERACT Programme