Dear readers,
Since the last issue of Danube Watch – its special edition - appeared in autumn 2000, the ICPDR has tried to identify the funds that would ensure a continued publication of the magazine that had previously relied on the funds provided by UNDP/GEF’s Danube Pollution Reduction Programme and Phare’s Multi-country Programme for the Danube River Basin. When the two programmes phased out in 1999 and in October 2000 respectively, the funding for Danube Watch also ceased.

The re-launch of the magazine that now draws on the newly established funds from the ICPDR and the expected funds from the UNDP/GEF Regional Project, is the right occasion to remind ourselves of who Danube Watch is for and what it aims to do for its readers.

The magazine’s target audience has sometimes been vaguely described as "the public at large". However, we believe that truth is better served if we recognize that readers of Danube Watch have in the past included a relatively small albeit respectable community of professionals: government officials and civil servants at the various ministries (environment, water, agriculture, finance, etc.) and ICPDR experts. We would now like to expand the scope of the magazine by increasingly – if necessarily gradually – addressing the needs of two other groups:  the private sector (bankers, industrial managers, decision makers at agricultural enterprises, local politicians and engineers from municipal waters works) and – very importantly - representatives or members of environmental NGOs and members of local communities.

Recognizing that it is only through a critical dialogue between these three broad groups that sustainable management of the water resources can be assured, we will seek to broaden the range of topics covered by Danube Watch to reflect these groups' shared concerns and – admittedly, sometimes conflicting - priorities.

One obvious way to ensure that the selected topics reflect a range of perspectives – national, regional, international, professional, lay, etc. – is to make sure that more voices are heard. We will therefore encourage local journalists and other informed and interested parties at the national level to contribute to the pages of Danube Watch and help us make it a real Magazine of the Danube River.

Since a lot of news and information concerning technical issues and activities of water protection under the DRPC is already available through other channels, in particular at www.icpdr.org, Danube Watch  should focus on providing the reader with more analysis and opinion and in particular from three points of view: that of the environmental expert, the environmentally aware industrialist, farmer, manufacturer, and the environmentally active NGO.

The information and assessment presented in Danube Watch should contribute to developing policies and mechanisms for the enforcement of environmental standards, and to finding technical and financial solutions for environmental problems in order to ensure sustainable management of water and ecosystems of the Danube River.

Joachim Bendow
Executive Secretary of the ICPDR