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1.3       Context of the report

In 2011, the Astana Water Action (UNECE, 2011a) addressed the status of  water  and  water-related  ecosystems as a key issue and set possible actions to improve it by ensuring the sustainable development in the UNECE region. Eastern Partnership countries, as part of the UNECE region ^([2]), host large areas of freshwater ecosystems including rivers and floodplains. Water is regarded as a strategic natural resource for supplying water to around 70 million people; and supports the key economic sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing industries in the region. However, renewable freshwater resources in the region are either over-exploited by economic sectors or polluted with high level nitrate and phosphorus emissions, mainly from agriculture. A large portion of the population of the region still don’t have access to a public water supply, whereas direct discharge or insufficient treated waste water exacerbate the pollution of surface and groundwater resources. These problems, partly or entirely, are common in all Eastern Partnership countries and have already been addressed in several publications (EEA, 2011; UNECE-OECD, 2014; UNECE, 2010a;REC 2011; UN, 2007; UNEP, 2011; Organisation für Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa, 2015; Koszta et al., 2016)