An international workshop “Exploring possibilities for cross-border and ‘beyond the projects’ co-operation linking water-energy-food-ecosystems in the Lielupe River Basin” was held in Bauska on 29 September. The Lielupe River Basin covering the area in Latvia and Lithuania was in focus of this workshop.
Resources and services needed to sustain human activity are interconnected with water, energy, food, and ecosystems components. Stakeholders from local and regional institutions play an important role to ensure prudent and effective use of resources. Cross-border cooperation of neighbouring municipalities in both countries enhances effectiveness of measures to balance economic activities, social benefits, and environmental concerns. While preconditions for successful co-working have been established via cross-border projects, the gained experience and achieved results need to be maintained over the project duration.
Agenda:
• NEXOGENESIS project , Lielupe Case Study and initial results from interviews on governance assessment from local/regional perspective covering water, energy, food, and ecosystems;
• Benchmarking the cross-border activities – overview on LAT-LIT co-operation projects;
• Reflection from local municipalities on experience from cross-border cooperation;
• Discussion on needs and potential options for cooperation, e.g., expertise, experience exchange, good practice, education, raising awareness, sharing information and data (national working groups);
• Next steps of NEXOGENESIS moderating the process towards signing the River basin contracts.
The workshop was organised within the frame of NEXOGENESIS project“Facilitating the next generation of effective and intelligent water-related policies utilizing artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning to assess the water-energy-food-ecosystem (WEFE) nexus” (NEXOGENSIS, Nr. 101003881), funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme and was aimed to initiate the discussion on possibilities for cross-border and ‘beyond the projects’ co-operation between local and regional institutions in the Lielupe River Basin in Latvia and Lithuania.
Find more about project here: https://www.bef.lv/projekti/nexogenesis-2-en/
