The European Parliament has been developing a sophisticated development policy for water services, which stresses the need to organise aid programmes on the basis of river basins and not political states and also the need to improve land use planning to assist conservation. It has recently commissioned a report by the Stockholm International Water Institute, which is being used for debates by MEPs, who can formally propose EU legislation.

The report says: “Riparian states should adopt a basin-based approach to avoid possible armed conflict over shared water resources and to build a lasting cooperative scheme for water management. “As a result, it suggests that EU aid supports funding cooperative arrangements between countries sharing the same river system, setting up “improved governance structure at national/international/regional levels to ensure best possible cooperation in... an aquifer or river basin.” This could include the creation of regional support-groups of experts on land and water use.
On planning, the report says that Brussels could “support awareness initiatives on water issues,” focused on planners and economists, and “contribute to a better understanding of
the processes linked to unwise industrial and agricultural systems and domestic use and (of) training in techniques to combat such threats, including... by changes in (administrative) processes.”

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The European Commission has announced that it is spending Euro 30 million on boosting healthcare in the Bolivian Andes, Euro 3.5 million on disaster preparedness in central America, Euro 4 million on drought assistance in Tajikstan, Armenia and Georgia, Euro 8.6 million on food aid to the Horn of Africa, Euro 1.5 million on human rights projects in north Africa and the Levant and Euro 810,000 in Uganda to help with an Ebola virus outbreak. become our reality.”