South Ossetia: EU funding access to water project

The European Union announced that it has launched a one year project to improve the water supply in South Ossetia, Georgia, on 6 September. The European Union is funding the project totalling ˆ945,000, which will be implemented by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), under the guidance of its current Irish Chairmanship.

“This initiative is the result of an understanding reached by the participants in the Geneva Talks, who recognise the need to facilitate assess to potable and irrigation water for the communities,” said the EU Delegation to Georgia in a press release.

In a note, the EU Delegation says that “the term 'South Ossetia' refers to the territories under the control of Tskhinvali” and that “this terminology is not of any prejudice to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and should not be considered as any form of recognition of independence in any way”.

According to a press release issued by the EU Delegation to Georgia, the project will be instrumental in:
• Reconstructing the left wing of the service outlet of the Zonkari dam;
• Rehabilitating the potable water distribution network within the village of Znauri;
• Installing a pump driving irrigation water from Saltvisi to the upper part of the village of Nikosi;
• Carrying out a feasibility study to assess the possibility of increasing the potable water supply to Tskhinvali;
• Assessing the repair work needed for resuming the supply of potable water from the Vanati intake.

In 2010 the European Union resumed an economic rehabilitation programme in South Ossetia that had been launched in the 1990s and interrupted due to the conflict in 2008. A ˆ2 million project mainly focused on the provision of irrigation and potable water to the population across the conflict divide and made safer and operational the Zonkari dam. This new project will build on the results of the previous one, facilitating access to potable and/or irrigation water to several hundreds of families on both sides of the Administrative Boundary Line.
(EU Neighbourhood Info)