May 21st -24th, 2024, Vlorë, Memaliaj, Këlcyrë, Dropull. After the workshops series carried out in the first round in 2023, the team of experts and the implementing NGOs of ESPID4Vjosa, continued with the second round of workshops with the local actors of Vjosa valley. These meetings serve as a crucial contribution to the improvement of the Vjosa river management and communication between all involved parties.
The second round of workshop kicked off with the meeting in Vlora, which gathered not only representatives of local institutions and organizations of civil society, but also locals from the cities: Vlora, Fier and Selenica. What was presented during this meeting, were the problems related to the following issues: drinking water supply and wastewater treatment, floods and flood risk management, hydropower, climate change, use of natural resources, protected area and ecotourism in the Vjosa river basin and were followed by the consultation on proposed measures for the solution of this problems.
The Vlora meeting was followed by Memaliaj, with another important meeting, where the problems and solutions offered on the 7 priority topics for the management of the Vjosa river basin were discussed with the representatives of the municipalities of Memaliaj and Tepelena, specialists, representatives of the agrotourism sector, as well as with the community of the area to ensure a sustainable management of this joint natural asset. In the end, the participants proceeded with the visit in the museum of Memaliaj city, where they were introduced to some of the initiatives of Memaliaj municipality for the promotion of tourism in this area.
While the tour of meetings continued with the workshop of Këlcyra, ESPID4Vjosa team was welcomed by the local actors of the area, where a major part of participants were women and girls, being the meeting with the greatest participation of women in the whole tour. The focus of the third workshop, the same as the previous meetings, stayed in the importance of sustainable management of the Vjosa basin and the challenges that the local actors face on a daily basis, giving the necessary space to the discussions on the solutions proposed by the experts for these challenges.
At the end of the second round of workshops in the Vjosa basin, ESPID4Vjosa team carried out the last meeting in Dropull, where the issues related to the sustainable management of the Vjosa river basin and transboundary cooperation were brought to attention as the key point of a good work on the management of an important protected area for Albania, Greece and whole Europe.
The expressed interest for the second round of workshops carried out along the Vjosa valley within the framework of ESPID4Vjosa from the local actors was high, in particular the mayors or district prefects with great will to ensure the good management of the Vjosa river.
The #ESPID4Vjosa project is a project financed by the Austrian Development Agency – ADA (Austrian Development Agency), which is implemented by the organizations EuroNatur and EcoAlbania.
