Sustainable financing of River Basin Organisations - a comparative study

In order to fulfil their mandate and sustain their existence, river basin organisations (RBOs) require reliable and sustainable sources of funding for their core institutional functioning. Across the world’s RBOs, both the definition of core costs and the mechanisms for funding these vary considerably. Funding mechanisms include member state contributions, various forms of donor support, and various types of user fees from within the basin as well as income generated through the provision of services. Understanding and comparing the options and rationales for various financing and cost-sharing modalities is key to monitoring increases in the financial sustainability of RBOs. Moreover, identifying best practices on the financing of RBOs’ core budgets is useful to inform institutional development choices of RBOs.

On behalf of GIZ, adelphi carried out a comparative baseline study on the sustainable funding of international RBOs and their core expenses. The study is  based on experiences from RBOs worldwide, with a specific focus on developing countries and especially African RBOs which are at the core of GIZ’s support to transboundary water resources management. The study also provided a comparative analysis of mechanisms for the funding of core functions of RBOs through members state contributions.