BUCHAREST (Romania), November 7 (SeeNews) – The European Commission said on Friday it is providing 17 million euro ($19.6 million) to Romania to improve access to drinking water.
The financial support will be directed to four major projects in Constanta, Ialomita, Gorj, Ilfov and Suceava counties, the European Commission said in a press release.
"Ensuring access to quality drinking water is a concrete example of European solidarity, which will bring benefits to a large number of Romanians.
With the new investments in cohesion policy, citizens from Romania and across Europe will have access to clean water, the result being protecting both their health and the environment," Corina Cretu, European Commissioner for regional policy, said.
The Commission will invest 2.5 million euro in Constanta and Ialomita counties, for the completion of the rehabilitation and extension of the water management and distribution infrastructure in 19 communes.
Some 24,000 inhabitants will benefit from the improvement works.
A further 7 million euro will finance the completion of works from the water distribution and collection network in the urban agglomerations of Gorj county.
Some 2.8 million euro will be used to complete the renovation and extension of the water distribution and sewerage network in eight urban areas located in Ilfov county, near the capital Bucharest.
In September, the Commission provided some 284 million euro to Romania to finance projects for modernisation of water infrastructure in twelve counties.
($=0.8646 euro)

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"All regions should have access to clean water, but in Romania and other regions of Europe, this is not yet fully achieved. Thanks to these EU-funded projects, hundreds of thousands of Romanians will benefit from drinking water every day," Corina Cretu, European Commissioner for regional policy, said.
The Commission will invest 60.7 million euro in Hunedoara county, in western Romania, to connect 110,000 inhabitants of the Jiu Valley area to a modern water distribution and treatment network.
Some 17.4 million euro will help connect approximately 380,000 people to a modern water distribution and sewerage network in Brasov county, central Romania.
In the northeastern Bacau county, the Commission will invest 15.7 million euro to improve the sewage treatment system.
Access to clean water for more than 155,000 inhabitants in Bistrita-Nasaud, northwestern Romania will be improved through an 8.6 million euro investment.
Finally, some 8.2 million euro will be granted to Tulcea county, southeastern Romania, to support water quality improvement and better environmental protection in the vicinity of the Danube Delta, which is part of UNESCO World Heritage.

EU backs Romania with 266 mln euro for water infrastructure projects.
BUCHAREST (Romania), July 19 (SeeNews) – The European Commission said on Wednesday it is providing 266 million euro ($306 million) from its Cohesion Fund for water infrastructure projects in Romania.
The financial support will be directed to four major water infrastructure and water management projects in Romania, the EC said in a press release.
Some 47 million euro will be invested In the northeastern county of Botosani to expand, upgrade and upgrade the current drinking water distribution and waste water treatment system.
The project will benefit nearly 187,000 people.
In Ilfov County, on the outskirts of Bucharest, the EU is investing 196.5 million euro to clean and improve the wastewater collection system for 1.5 million people.
Another 11.5 million euro will be used to expand and refurbish the drinking water distribution network for 175,000 inhabitants in Hunedoara county, in the central part of the country.
Also, 11 million euro will go to renew the water distribution and treatment network for 22,000 people in Timis county, in western Romania.
In March, the EU provided 20 million euro upgrade of water and sewerage infrastructure in the western county of Caras-Severin.
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East Africa: European Union Boosts Aid to Drought-Affected Countries in the Horn of Africa.
Brussels — Additional humanitarian assistance of €60 million will help scale up the response in the three countries worst affected by drought in the Horn of Africa.
The European Commission has announced additional humanitarian assistance of €60 million to help people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, who have been facing critical levels of food insecurity due to severe drought.
This additional assistance brings EU humanitarian aid to the Horn of Africa region (including Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti) to nearly €260 million since the beginning of the year.
Millions of people are struggling to meet their and their families’ food needs.
The European Union has been following the situation closely since the very beginning and progressively increasing aid to the affected populations.
Projects addressing water supply, livestock protection and response to outbreaks will also be supported.
The bulk of the funding (€40 million) will go to help the most vulnerable in Somalia, while €15 million will go to Ethiopia and €5 million to Kenya.
Background Millions of people in the Horn of Africa are affected by food insecurity and water shortages.
The EU has allocated over €1 billion in humanitarian aid to its partners in the Horn of Africa since 2011.

HotSpots H2O, July 6: EU Increases Humanitarian Aid to War-Torn DRC.
The Global Rundown The European Commission will provide an additional €5 million in humanitarian aid to victims of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where access to food, water, and healthcare is increasingly limited.
The number of new cholera cases in Yemen is slowing, but contaminated water and poor health infrastructure could lead to continued spread of the disease.
Research by Save the Children details the importance of providing psychological support to children displaced from the brutal ISIS-government conflict in Mosul, Iraq.
“You have got more people, with more livestock, on less and less productive rangeland and it’s a really explosive situation.
VOA By The Numbers €28 million Total amount of funding that the EU has provided to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017.
The humanitarian aid will help provide the displaced population with water, food, shelter, and healthcare.
Relief Web 219,000 Estimated number of cholera cases in Yemen as of June 26, according to WHO.
South Korea struggles to conserve rainwater and is the world’s fifth-largest importer of “virtual water,” which is water used in industrial and agricultural production.
The situation could be further complicated if North Korea changes the water course on the peninsula by releasing water from its dams.

At the April meeting of the California Water Commission, Trevor Joseph and Steven Springhorn with the Department of Water Resources Sustainable Groundwater Management program gave a high-level overview of how groundwater sustainability agency formation is going so far, along with a preview of new data tools that the Department is working on to provide information to the groundwater sustainability agencies as they are developing their groundwater sustainability plans.
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act requires local agencies who want to be the Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) for their groundwater basin submit notification to the Department in order to potentially avoid State Water Resources Control Board intervention; it is also a signal to the state that these local agencies intend to prepare groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs).
Mr. Joseph noted that there’s a lot of blue on the map, meaning a lot of local agencies have come together especially in the last few months and have worked out the details to submit GSA formation notifications to the Department.
SGMA and the GSP regulations allow for the public to comment on the alternatives.
Steven Springhorn, Senior Engineering Geologist with the Department’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Program, then updated the Commission on the work that the Department has been doing to provide technical assistance to the newly forming GSAs and their efforts to develop groundwater sustainability plans.
“But we are also hearing and fully expect that locals also need help and assistance through this, so the assistance is what we’re developing now.” Mr. Springhorn’s presentation was focused more on statewide tools, analysis, and data sets, but there are other additional areas that the Department is working on.
“We’ve been providing data, tools, and analysis, the CASGEM program, which is a key piece for groundwater level information; there are different maps and different reports that we’ve done throughout the years,” he said.
SGMA puts an emphasis or premium on having informed decisions over this long planning horizon.” Mr. Springhorn noted that there are a lot of requirements to compile data in SGMA and the GSPs, but that data is distributed in a number of areas and different websites within our agency and other state and federal agencies.
“There are a number of data requirements in the water budget, and we plan to provide the tools necessary to complete those requirements, such as models throughout the state,” Mr. Springhorn said.
Trevor Joseph then concluded the presentation by noting that now that the legislative requirements are mostly behind them, the Department is really focused on providing the financial planning and technical assistance moving forward so that local agencies can complete their plans on time, either by 2020 or 2022.