Ramallah, September 23rd 2018_The mayor of Prato and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation Office in Jerusalem launched today, with a kick-off meeting, the project WW Pal – Waste Water Palestine, funded by AICS Jerusalem and implemented by Prato Municipality and many Italian and Palestinian partners.
The project will assist the Union of Palestinian Water Services Providers (UPWSP) to improve the management and treatment of wastewater in the whole territory of Palestine including Gaza. The main goal priority is, beyond providing drinking water, to enhance the quantity of treated wastewater in order to provide its availability to be reused in agricultural irrigation.
Il Comune di Prato per il trattamento delle acque reflue in Palestina
In order to achieve such goal, the project will carry out the following main activities:
– the analysis of the wastewater situation in Palestine;
– assisting the water utilities and municipal water and wastewater departments in drafting the local wastewater management plans;
– deepening the details in some pilot areas;
– training the staff coming from water utilities and municipal water departments.
The leader of the project is the Italian Municipality of Prato, the second biggest city to the Region of Tuscany. Other Italian partners are: Regional Water Authority of Tuscany (AIT); the association of Municipalities (ANCI); the association of local water provider (CISPEL); the University of Prato (PIN); the wastewater company of Prato (GIDA); the NGO “Water Right Foundation”. From the Palestinian part a strong support on technical management is provided Palestinian Wastewater Engineers Group (PWEG) which will benefit at the same time from the capacity building actions offered by the Italian experts.