The first workshop on the "River Basin Management Plan" was held on May 29, 2018 in Minsk. It was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Protection (Minprirody) at central level and Oblasts level, as well as experts from the Central Scientific Research Institute for Complex Use of Water Resources (CRICUWR) contracted for the Dnieper RBMP refinement.
The Workshop aimed at better understanding the main principles of River Basin Management from the planning process to the implementation, and raising interest toward River Basin Management planning. Presentations and discussions were mainly focused on Belarusian context (new strategy, implementation of 2 Basin councils (Dnieper in 2016, Western Bug in 2017) and the third one (Pripyat) in 2018, and on comparison of Belarusian and French approaches of the RBMP development.
Mr Vladimir Korneev, from CRICUWR, presented the technical content of current Dnieper RBMP.
Participants were greatly interested in the presentation on the implementation of plans and the program of measures. A live discussion was engaged between representatives of Minprirody in the Oblast and at central level about fees management. A small part of water fees as well as ecological taxes are spent for water management, most of them are collected for the State budget. Oblasts requested the way to manage most of the fees paid by water users for environment and water management.
During the practical collective exercises, the group identified and localised main issues in Belarusian river basins, and worked on the complete planning process (main issues, stakes, goals, objectives, measures) for some stakes.
The presentations of EUWI + project experts can be downloaded here:
River Basin Management Plan by Philippe Seguin
https://www.slideshare.net/EUWIplusEast/workshop-river-basin-management-plan-29-may-2018-minsk