The results of the PSD Project "Development of capacity for the creation of Water User Organization WUO in Volyn region"

Can the Dutch Water Board model contribute to the Ukrainian economy and create business opportunities for the foreign and local water and agricultural sector?

Two models for local water management circulate in Ukraine. For irrigated areas legislation has been adopted to initiate Water User Organizations. In this model the property rights of the irrigation water infrastructure are transferred to the local water users. Local farmers can become responsible for operation, maintenance and modernization of the system. Problem is that the main irrigation systems are under Russian occupation and destroyed to a large extend.

The second model for local water management is for drainage areas in the humid and semi humid regions in Ukraine. Here the Government remain in control of the water infrastructure by the regional water management organizations that belonged to the State Agency of Water Resources or recently transferred to the State Agency of Melioration and Fishery. The drainage and water infiltrations systems are more than 50 years old, use much energy and need to be adapted to current and future climate change to safeguard current and increase future crop yields and support a Rural development. The problem is that UA Governmental instuments for modernising the water infrastructure are limited.

The project concluded that transfer of local water management infrastructure to local users was not possible under the current WUO legislation because many land and water users benefiting from the water infrastructure are non-agricultural (flood management, environment water flow regulation, water quilt monitoring and water treatment).  Learning about the unique Dutch Water Board model the local farming community expressed the wish to invest in the modernization, operation and maintenance of then drainage – irrigation system to increase their profit and to contribute to the Ukrainian economy. Besides, in parallel with modernization of the drainage infrastructure and institutional set-up, the innovative Dutch technologies on agriculture and agribusiness can be shared in framework of the B2B exchange to support introduction of the green deal principles in the local agriculture practices that provides reduction of the CO2 emission on the peat soils.

As a result of the project implementation there is a concent that the Dutch Waterboard Model could contribute to the Ukrainian economy and create business opportunities for the foreign and local water and agricultural sector. Therefore the project coordination team will prepar a related follow-up project for broad capacity building for Volyn and other western regions

  Kyiv, 27 March 2024

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