EMWIS (Euro-Mediterranean Information System on know-how in the Water sector) is an initiative of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. It provides a strategic tool for exchanging information and knowledge in the water sector between and within the Euro Mediterranean partnership countries. All the countries involved in the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM: the 28 EU member states of the EU plus the 15 Mediterranean Partner Countries - Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Mauritania, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey) are concerned. EMWIS was initiated during the Marseilles Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Water Management (November 1996) - Declaration, when the Euro-Mediterranean Ministers of Water met together and decided to create a system to rationalise the exchange of information and know-how. Today, it is the only operational tool for cooperation between the 43 Euro-Mediterranean countries in the water sector. Its task is to make an inventory and gather all available information, providing easy access to everyone.