Under the auspices of the 17^th NALAS General Assembly, the  Water conference on the role of municipalities in providing quality water and sanitation services was organised in Belgrade on 13 May 2022.

The conference guests were greeted by the new NALAS President, Mr. Goran Cvetanovic and Ms. Zorica Bilic, Country Coordinator for Serbia of GIZ ORF MMS.

“In the past years NALAS has been very active in addressing the importance and the need of strengthening the capacities of the local governments in provision of quality water and sanitation services.

This was very evident and again confirmed during the COVID 19 period; we have witnessed how much these basic municipal services are important and essential for the well-being and quality of life of our communities.

Today, within the Regional Capacity Development Network for Water and Sanitation Services (RCDN), I have the great pleasure to open this water conference.” - said Mr. Cvetanovic. 

The key note presentation were delivered by:

• Maja Markovic, Local Resilience Expert, UNDRR: Making Cities Resilient 2030
• Pavle Donev, Country Coordinator, GIZ ORF-MMS: Capacity development – cost or investment for the future?

The conference also included a panel on municipal challenges in providing high quality WSS services, the speakers being:

• Miodrag Gluscevic, NALAS Task Force Solid Waste and Water Management (focus: key challenges in the region)
• Maja Milosevic Milojic, City of Leskovac (focus: waste water treatment plant)
• Maja Medenica, Belgrade Waterworks (focus: digitalisation and asset management practices)
• Refik Bojadzic, Secretary General of Union of Municipalities of Montenegro (focus: cooperation LG-PUC, LGA-APUC, importance of capacity development)
• Nikola Tarbuk, Secretary General of SCTM (focus: LGA’s support to advance inter-municipal cooperation in provision of WSS services)

Moreover, the NALAS regional water management policy position paper was presented by Mr. Miodrag Gluscevic.

Delivering his closing remarks, NALAS President Mr. Cvetanovic emphasized that “This regional policy position and recommendations will inspire and lead our network in initiating and implementing new initiatives for improvement of the quality of the services at local level in water and wastewater sector.

This platform will serve as a good basis for NALAS member associations to represent the interest of local authorities in the region before central governments and other relevant forums related to aligning water and sanitation policies with the needs of local population and requirements provided by the EU acquis.

I would like to thank our partners, the GIZ’s Open Regional Fund-Modernisation of Municipal Services, the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) for the support they are giving to our network in responding to the challenges in providing high quality water supply and sanitation services.”

Photo gallery:

Day 1-Statutory Session

Day 2-Water Conference