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In 2003, the Parties to the Water Convention decided to regularly carry out regional assessments in order to keep the status of transboundary waters in the UNECE region under scrutiny, to benchmark progress and to provide the basis for continuous bilateral and multilateral work under the Water Convention. The Parties to the Convention mandated its Working Group on Monitoring and Assessment to prepare these assessments.
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This Assessment could not have been prepared without the help and input of many individuals and organizations. The UNECE secretariat would like to thank the following people for their help in preparing the Assessment. All those whom we have involuntarily forgotten, please accept our sincere apologies along with our thanks.
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Transboundary waters play a key role in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) region. Their basins cover more than 40% of the European and Asian surface of the UNECE region and are home to about 460 million inhabitants — more than 50% of the European and Asian population of UNECE. They link populations of different countries, are important ecosystems and their services are the basis for the income for millions of people and create hydrological, social and economic interdependencies between countries. Thus, their reasonable and sustainable management is crucial for peoples’ livelihoods and well-being in the whole region.
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The Second Assessment has been developed under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention). The Water Convention fosters sustainable management of shared water resources through stable and predictable cooperation. An important obligation for Parties to achieve the Convention’s aims is to carry out, at regular intervals, joint or coordinated assessments of the conditions of transboundary waters and the effectiveness of measures taken to prevent, control and reduce transboundary impacts of their activities. Indeed, accurate assessments of the status of water resources, and the nature and magnitude of water problems, are essential for preparing proper policy actions at the local, national and transboundary levels.
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