Operational level

The National Focal Points

National Focal Points (NFPs) are small teams working in a public organisation responsible for water-related documentation and information. Their tasks consist in creating and developing a national information server; organising communication processes and access to vetted information; ensuring information availability in the working languages; developing access to the information and maintaining relations with the users in their country. To date, 20 of the 37 partner countries have created a NFP, and 16 of them have launched their own website.


The Technical Unit

The Technical Unit is a permanent body managed and financed by a group of water operators acting on behalf of their governments: CEDEX (Spain), Office International de l’Eau (France) and SOGESID (Italy). Its major roles are to:

• coordinate and provide assistance and recommendations to the National Focal Points
• support the activities of the Steering and Coordination Committees
• act as the International Focal Point. In this role, it is responsible for collecting data on institutions, for documentation, training, research and development and data management at international level (relevant for the Euro-Mediterranean region). It manages the EMWIS information portal, acting as a single access point for inland water in the Euro-Mediterranean region, and providing access to international information and NFP websites. It also works towards reaching agreements with international initiatives and projects.