1st Regional WfW Conference "Partnerships for achieving Water and Sanitation Millennium Development Goals in the EECCA region" took place from 4 to 6 November 2007 in Kyiv

Women for Water partnership (WfW), All Ukrainian Environmental NGO "MAMA-86" and WECF organizations that are actively involved in safe drinking water and sanitation issues throughout the world and in Ukraine were the organizers of the Conference.

In the Conference 64 representatives of Armenia, Byelorussia, Bulgaria, Germany, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania, Ukraine, Uzbekistan NGOs, Ministry of Housing and Communal Service of Ukraine, Ministry of the Environment of Ukraine, State Committee for Water Management of Ukraine, Water and Sanitation experts, International organizations and donors, guests from WfW partners NGOs from Zimbabwe participated in the Conference.

The Conference goals were:

To share experience and lessons learned from water supply and sanitation programs in the region.

To formulate opportunities for up-scaling best practices based on in-depth analysis of case studies from Armenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

To identify interested parties for future cooperation.

During first day of the Conference participants visited ecosan pilot projects in Bobryk and Vertiivka villages in Nizhyn rayon Chernigivska oblast’ and had the opportunity to see results of the implemented project. They saw built ecosan toilet for the private household and school ecosan toilet in Bobryk village and reconstructed water supply system in kindergarten in Vertiivka village.

During the Conference on 5—6 November in Kyiv topics of Regional Challenges in the implementation of Protocol on Water and Health, challenges and goals that arise from the forthcoming International Year of Sanitation, achievement of MDG were discussed. Apart from these issues Conference participants discussed situation in water supply and sanitation in EECCA countries (Moldova, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan), results of the first projects of water supply and sanitation that were implemented in Ukraine, Armenia, Bulgaria and Romania with support of «Aqua for All» (A4A) fund from the Netherlands and Women for Water partnership, WECF contribution to the MDG achievement in EECCA countries. New approaches to waste water management were presented and experience and lessons from the projects in implementing the ecosan technologies in the region were discussed.

Conference participants presented and discussed countries case studies on water supply and sanitation in the EECCA countries where WfW partners work, exchanged the experience between NGOs— Members and Non-Members of WfW partnership and expressed their thoughts about future cooperation and development of the partnership.