From September 17th to 19th the NEXOGENESIS project team traveled to Bucharest, Romania for the its annual General Assembly meeting.
On September 17th, our local partner Business Development Group organised organised a public event on Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus for Sustainable Development with the support of The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, the Romanian Department for Sustainable Development , the General Secretariat of the Romanian Government, Apele Române and the Jiu Water Basin Administration. This event was the occasion to present the NEXOGENESIS project approach and achievements, share highlights on the Jiu River basin case study and also to present the NEPAT tool – the NEXOGENESIS interactive decision support tool. Our partner Eurecat made a brief demo with selected WEFE policies in the Jiu River Basin followed by a practical training session for the stakeholders present.
The event attracted a very high-level attendance with the participation of László Borbély, State Counsellor, Coordinator of the Department for Sustainable Development, General Secretariat of the Romanian Government, H.E. Willemijn Van Haaften, Ambassador Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Romania, Daniela Liana Dudau, Head of Cross-border Relations Department, Jiu Water Basin Administration and Alina Mihaela Dima, Professor, Vice Rector, Bucharest University of Economic Studies.
Following this event, local users and stakeholders had the opportunity to attend a NEPAT demonstration led by Eurecat where they were able to test out the interactive decision support tool while getting comprehensive guidance and explanations from the developing team. It was a real pleasure to see our tool in the hands of end-users! Participants inluded WWF-Romania, Apele Române, Ministerul Mediului, Apelor si Padurilor and Ministerul Agriculturii și Dezvoltării Rurale.
The two following days were the occasion for parners to sit together and think collectivelly of the nexts steps towards the end of the project. This coming year promises to be very rich with many activities involving our stakeholder accross our 5 case studies, the finetuning of our NEPAT tool and the user validated policy packages as well as the organisation of our final event ! The team will have a lot on their hands but we are confident that the great collaboration among partners will lead to a very successful closing of the project.
Our communicaton and dissemination teams also used the opportunity to be physically gathered with project partners to film some video interviews, stay tuned…! In the meantime you can find our previous videos here.
A warm thank you to Florentina Nanu, Ciprian Nanu and Madalina Deaconu for organising this 3-days meeting and to the Bucharest University of Economic Studies for hosting us in their magnificent building!