In an area of transition to a market economy governements will no longer be able to continue financing irrigation and drainage systems at the level somebody used to do. The private sector (mainly water user associations) should gradually take over tasks performed by public administrators, such as a management and manitenance of existing infrastructures. To this end, user associtations should improve their own capacity building, by increasing their technical and financial resources.

SUBTOPICS:

a) Stakeholders involvement;
b) Legal regulations and organizational frameworks with regard to participatory decision processes;
c) Trade-off between owners' and users' rights;
d) Harmonization of water management and agricultural policies among individual European countries;
e) International cooperation in building water management information systems