15 July 2013
EUWI-AWG, SIWI Analyze Development Support for AMCOW Priorities
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The EU Water Initiative (EUWI) Africa Working Group (AWG) and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) released a report “Mapping of Financial Support to Transboundary Water Cooperation in Africa.” The report intends to provide the basis for increasing aid effectiveness and reducing duplication of effort, and provide an overview of current support for implementation of work programme of the African Ministerial Conference on Water (AMCOW).

EUWI5 July 2013: The EU Water Initiative (EUWI) Africa Working Group (AWG) and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) released a report titled ‘Mapping of Financial Support to Transboundary Water Cooperation in Africa,’ which intends to provide the basis for increasing aid effectiveness and reducing duplication of effort, as well as to provide an overview of current support for the implementation of the work programme of the African Ministerial Conference on Water (AMCOW).

The report is based on a survey of development partners regarding their policy priorities in transboundary water management, financial support to transboundary basins, financial support to multi-basin projects or regional institutions, and non-earmarked transboundary water management support. The survey also addressed questions to regional economic communities (RECs) and transboundary basin organizations (TBOs), asking about their institutional, planning and financial frameworks, as well as their sources of finance.

The main findings of the report include that development partners’ policy objectives are primarily aligned with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular to halve the number of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, while water resources management has focused on implementation through the principle of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), as outlined by the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI).

The report concludes that: not all development partners that support transboundary water management recognize it as an important topic in their policy documents; support for transboundary water management was between EUR 57 and 88 million in 2011; a large share of transboundary basins in Africa are still unsupported; transboundary basin organizations have diverse sources of funding, with development partners mainly funding programmatic activities and TBO member States mainly funding core activities; EU institutions together make up the single largest multilateral support of transboundary water management in Africa; and the fields in which the development partners provide support have shifted from IWRM planning towards institutional strengthening and the development of management instruments. [SIWI Press Release] [Publication: Mapping of Financial Support to Transboundary Water Cooperation in Africa]

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