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WATER COOPERATION, SUSTAINABILITY AND POVERTY ERADICATIONImage: T.Salathé/RamsarA view of the Romanian section of the Danube Delta, part of a potential Transboundary Ramsar Site shared between Moldova, Romania and Ukrainethe sustainable development objectives of different stakeholders,to identify the ecological, economic and social factors that affect,or may affect, a given site, tools to resolve conflicts, and to obtainresources to find sustainable solutions.Where wetlands and their water catchment basins are shared betweendifferent countries, or different administrative areas, cooperation forthe long-term use of their resources at a transboundary level, takingthe needs of the entire ecosystem and water catchment into account,is an urgent need. And such cooperation is a process that develops,often passing different steps that may individually take much time tobe achieved, in order to move on to the next level of integration andcoordinated action. Local non-governmental stakeholder organizationsare often among the first ones to understand the need for commonapproaches and coordinated action, and to make the first moves.Ideally they will do so with the support of local authorities, enablingthe creation of the first formal contacts across artificial borders. Thisshould lead to regular consultations, agreements on cooperation, andjoint activities. The next steps of integration proposed in the Ramsarguidance are joint planning exercises and the elaboration of commonmanagement plans and interventions. Eventually, shared sites andcatchment basins would be administered jointly by the respectiveinstitutions in charge in each country concerned.Real life experience shows the most challenging initial factors tobe the need to create trust, mutual trust among the neighbours andthe different administrations concerned. Confidence and trust amongthe partners, the vision and belief that together, they can identifyshared and common vital interests, and at the same time acknowledgingthat there can easily be potentially harmful side effects andconsequences, created through activities that supportonly unilateral interests. As well as political vision andwill, transboundary cooperation needs dedicated staff,sufficient time and patience. One of the primary needsis to find a common language. Speaking literally aboutthe same idiom, but also in terms of expressions thatneed to be understood in the same sense by stakeholdersand geographical neighbours who have possiblyvery differing backgrounds and individual histories.Information and data, as well as their analyses, need tobe shared in a transparent way. This is likely to triggerand to be followed by common monitoring and researchprogrammes. Hopefully, these are benefiting from apragmatic exchange of equipment and services. Suchexchange can lead to the joint development of rulesand responsibilities, including joint management plans.Undertaking joint training, regular exchange of staff anddisseminating concrete experiences rapidly increasesthe know-how and intervention capacities, notably attransboundary level. In this way, mutual benefits can beachieved and be recognized more widely. The disseminationof best case and other success stories benefits theraising of awareness and implementation capacities.On the European continent – where many, oftensmaller, countries meet in a restricted continental space– national borders are abundant. This can result in thesplitting of functional water catchment basins and individualwetland sites into two artificial entities, which[ 250 ]