This publication provides the results of collaboration on water security between the Republic of Belarus (hereafter “Belarus”), the OECD and its partners implementing the EU-funded EU Water Initiative Plus project. As such, it is the most recent chapter in the OECD’s long history of engagement on water-related issues in the region of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA). The OECD has supported the EECCA countries since the early 1990s as they transitioned towards market economies following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The OECD has provided guidance and expertise on strengthening water management as a major aspect of building greener economies and safeguarding long-term water, food and energy security. Its work has helped improve environmental and water management policies and facilitated the integration of environmental considerations into broader reform agendas.

The Republic of Belarus has established water security as the country’s main overarching policy objective in the field of water resource management, notably in its draft Strategy of Water Resource Management in the Context of Climate Change for the Period until 2030 (Water Strategy 2030). The strategy’s primary focus is to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, and Belarus plans to do so through six areas of reform. First, Belarus aims to introduce best available techniques and further improve water use efficiency. Second, it will better account for the impacts of climate change on water resources and adapt its water sector to climate change. Third, Belarus aims to improve surface and ground water monitoring systems. Fourth, it plans to introduce an integrated system of permits for nature users and reform its pricing system for water resources. Fifth, Belarus will adopt and implement river basin management plans, and lastly it will continue co-operation with its neighbours on transboundary rivers.

This chapter briefly presents the context of Belarus’s water policy with its overarching objective to ensure water security. It outlines the work of the European Union Water Initiative Plus (EUWI+), which strives to support the harmonisation of Eastern Partnership (EaP) water resource management policies with the EU’s Water Framework Directive and integrated water resource management principles, including through the facilitation of policy dialogues on water. It highlights the efforts designed to improve strategic and mid-term planning at the national, basin and local levels. Other EUWI+ activities covered in this chapter aim to strengthen co-operation on transboundary bodies of water, improve data management and the national monitoring framework, build local capacity and execute pilot projects to enhance water security.

This chapter provides an overview of the composition and distribution of the country’s water resources across the river basins and regions (oblasts) of Belarus. It presents the effects of climate change and other anthropogenic pressures on the quantity, quality and seasonal availability of water resources as well as the progress Belarus has made over time towards a less water-intensive economy. It includes four case studies displaying the diversity of challenges facing different oblasts in Belarus with varying endowments of water resources and demographic trends and pressures. The chapter also describes the policy instruments and legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks that form the country’s water resource management system. On the subject of monitoring surface and groundwater, the chapter presents concrete examples of how the process of delineating water bodies and monitoring water quality has taken place in Belarus through the European Union Water Initiative Plus project.

This chapter lays out the policy responses to the challenges identified in Chapter 2 within the context of Belarus’s new draft Strategy of Water Resource Management in the Context of Climate Change for the Period until 2030. It describes the Strategy’s development and its objectives linked to the water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The chapter also presents instruments to support the Strategy’s implementation, notably data collection and management systems, river basin management plans and the UNECE-WHO/Europe Protocol on Water and Health. The chapter zooms in on different sectoral, regional and basin-level challenges, focusing on rural water supply and sanitation, water-use efficiency standards for water-intensive enterprises, irrigation infrastructure rehabilitation and sub-basin management plans.

This chapter assesses opportunities to boost water security in Belarus by supporting the country’s ongoing reform agenda. It summarises the successes that Belarus has achieved, such as progress on harmonising its water policy with the EU’s Water Framework Directive and integrated water resources management principles as well as the development of river basin management plans for two of Belarus’s transboundary river basins. It also highlights improvements in Belarus’s inter-ministerial co-ordination on water management, efforts to achieve the water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and international co-operation on transboundary watercourses and lakes. The chapter concludes with a list of potential areas for further work to improve water security in Belarus.