The global objective of this call for proposals is the promotion of efficient use of water in urban and rural areas, in order to adapting and enhancing resilience to the water-related impacts of climate change;

The specific objective of this call for proposals is to identify, test and showcase innovative technical and institutional solutions that have the potential to be scaled up and that lead to the efficient use of water in the Southern Mediterranean region.

Projects on innovative solutions are defined as follows:

i) Projects that apply a technology, action, methodology or approach that has not been applied or tested before on a large scale ; that offer potential advantages compared to current best practices; and that could subsequently be applied on a larger scale to similar situations, or

ii) Projects that put into practice, test, evaluate and disseminate a technology, action, methodology or approach that is new or unknown in the specific context of the Southern Mediterranean region, such as the geographical, ecological, socio-economic context; and that could subsequently be replicated elsewhere in similar circumstances.

The priorities of this call for proposals are:

1. Promoting water efficiency measures in line with water national strategies and plans;
2. Facilitating the regulation and distribution of water among different uses;
3. Protecting conventional water resources (notably against uncontrolled tapping);
4. Promoting the use of renewable and non-conventional water resources and their distribution;
5. Promoting measures leading to the reduction of water losses and to water saving in urban or rural areas;
6. Optimising water financing and related instruments with emphasis on innovative mechanisms at local level;
7. Promoting governance measures leading to water savings in industrial processes, that can include as examples, but not limited to, innovative regulatory, fiscal, institutional measures;
8. Supporting the implementation of the Water, Energy, Food Security and Ecosystem Nexus. Where relevant and in view to having a fully integrated approach, activities linked to sustainable irrigation, land protection and crop management may be addressed;
9. Controlling the use of poor quality water (untreated wastewater) for secondary activities, in particular supplementary irrigation.

Each Application (concept note and full application) is expected to directly target at least one of the above priorities and can cover several of these priorities.