Since its establishment in 1996, the Global Water Partnership (GWP) has instigated priority actions to promote Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) worldwide.

Today, the International Network of Basin Organizations, created in 1994 during Aix-les-Bains Constitutive Conference (France) gathers more than 125 members or observers in 42 countries over the world.

The General Assembly of INBO held in Salvador de Bahia, December 1998, decided to devote more efforts in sharing the experience of INBO Members. Contacts have therefore been established with a number of partners, including the European Union, The World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Organization of American States, the Global Water Partnership, bilateral French, Dutch, Spanish or German cooperation, etc.

This Associated Program was initiated and will be developed in close collaboration with other initiatives launched under the aegis of the GWP. INBO and several other INBO members-organizations are members of GWP. Mr. R. Garrido, the Network's President and Federal Secretary for Water Resources in Brazil, was elected member of the "Partnership" Management Committee. Most existing basin organizations are already, or should become active members of the Regional Water Partnerships (RTACs of GWP) and cooperate within such a framework.

On proposal of member organizations and permanent observers belonging to the same geographic region, "Regional Networks" can be created within INBO in order to:

• strengthen relations between members from neighboring countries,
• develop joint activities of INBO in the region,
• organize joint activities of regional interest.

The overall goal of the proposed " Associated Program " is to upgrade and support the development of any organizational initiatives for integrated water resources management in river basins/lake basins/aquifer level, where there is a felt need, while bringing into focus the many assumptions and paradigms which underpin the search for reconciliation of economic growth, social equity, environmental conservation and protection of water resources, and participation of the Civil Society.

4 main initial outputs are expected :

� direct cooperation established between existing, future or pilot basin organizations through twinning agreements;

These 4 expected main outputs are clearly meant to reinforce each other in achieving the best services to offer.

For example, the strategic support mobilized in output 2 will be seconded by the knowledge base developed for output 3 and disseminated by the documentation system organized for Output 4. Outputs 2, 3 and 4 can obviously be enhanced in the context of output 1 to enrich direct cooperation between basin organizations.

Outputs 3 and 4 are seen as contributing to the GWP Associated Program aiming at setting up an Information System on "integrated water resources management" with a "knowledge of basin organizations" perspective. The program will also develop strong linkages with the efforts undertaken in the area of institutional capacity building for integrated water resources management (IWRM) through the UNDP "CAPNET" project.

In addition, all GWP initiatives benefit from close interaction with regional groups (RTACs and forthcoming Regional Water Partnerships), which is meant to ensure broad adequacy between services provided through APs and real needs in the field. The Program will develop into a dialogue with these GWP regional groups on the basin organization issues in each region.

It is useful to make available multidisciplinary and multinational teams of experimented specialists-facilitators, coming from existing basin organizations, to help making progress, on request, in this long process of discussion, reflection, dialogue, and decision-making undertaken at the level of river basins or at the national or regional level.

Contacts can be broadened to specialists from international organizations, e.g. the United Nations organizations, ICID, IPTRID& IWMI for drainage and irrigation, or the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and other recognized international or national associations, International Secretariat for Water (ISW) when needed.

In spite of years of practice, many problems are still encountered when integrated river basin management has to be implemented.

The service provided through this project is to collect actual practices in order to generate ideas and recommendations, and to promote practical guidelines for putting integrated river basin management into practice.

The RBO-AP, together with all collaborative partners (specialized institutes such as RBA Delft, ISW Montreal, research centers, universities, network of professionals from basin organizations, panel of experts to be set up, the Global Water Unit of the World Bank, IWSA task force for measuring water supply and sanitation utility performances, specialized program of the Africa Water Utility Partnership,...) will contribute to improving the knowledge and know-how in the area of basin organizations and IWRM, and making them available through the following activities:

• River basin policy and planning,
• Operational management,
• And a set of common, widely available and easily measurable performance indicators, in a typological form.

" AQUADOC-INTER " is the project implemented by INBO to exchange knowledge on water resources management at river basin level and to allow all members and possible partners to share and exchange useful institutional documentation.

According to the issues of the Frankfurt meeting, 7 December 1999, the "AQUADOC-INTER" project will allow exchanges and collaboration with others networks to take place in order to :

• manage water information in a comprehensive and coordinated manner with initiatives from IPTRID (FAO), STREAM PROJECT (NL), CAPNET (UNDP), SAWINET (GTZ), EMWIS (European Union and Euro-Mediterranean countries), WHYCOS (WMO) and try to avoid redundancy and competition ;
• make an inventory of all other water information networks and develop links of particular interest to basin organizations;
• develop mutual tools and common metacrawlers to address and disseminate queries within all existing networks. A common strategy is to be developed to enable users to enter the different networks through a similar window;
• build altogether multilingual tools, dictionaries and glossaries.

"AQUADOC-INTER" is already implemented through the creation of two regional priority networks: Latin America, and Europe. Some organizations already participate in the project :

• in Latin America: CUNDINAMARCA Regional Autonomous Corporation (Colombia), entrusted by LANBO with the organization of a regional resource center, the National Water Commission (Mexico), Secretariat for Water Resources (Brazilian Ministry of the Environment) ;
• in Europe : the International Office for Water (France), APELE ROMANE (Romania), VITUKI (Hungary), IMWM (Institute for Meteorology and Water Management) associated with the Gdansk Water Foundation (GWF) (Poland), the Water Research Institute: TG MASARYK associated with POVODI MORAVY (Morava River Basin Authority) (Czech Republic).
• in the Mediterranean, EMWIS operated jointly with France, Italy, and Spain, associated with the 15 Members of the European Union and the 12 countries of the Mediterranean basin, signatories of Barcelona Convention.

Privileged links will also be developed with particular centers of expertise such as the Center for Research on River Basin Administration of DELFT University of Technology (RBA Delft, the Netherlands), the International Secretariat for Water (ISW Montreal, Canada), and others to be identified as the program develops.

On the issue of knowledge synthesis, contacts have been initiated by INBO with officers-in-charge of the Global Water Unit of THE WORLD BANK, the Knowledge Management Network of THE WORLD BANK, the IWSA task force for Measuring Water Supply and Sanitation Utility performances, the French "Académie de l'Eau" or the Norwegian "Water Academy", etc.

INBO Permanent Technical Secretariat is already in close connection with the nascent CAPNET (IWRM associated program of GWP) and the Water Utility Partnership (WUP) associated program of GWP (project n°2 development of performance indicators and benchmarking).

At the regional level, contact has been established with the Organization of American States (OAS), the Water Utility Partnership (WUP Africa), GTZ (Southern Africa), .

INBO will work in close collaboration with the following international programs :

• The Euro Mediterranean Water Information System (EMWIS), financed by the European Union, France, Italy and Spain and by the 27 countries concerned of the Mediterranean basin.
• The African Water Utility Partnership (WUP) project n°1: Institutional Options, associated program of GWP, financed by the World Bank and France,
• "Comisión Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo" (CCAD) is currently reviewing its "Plan de acción para la gestión integrada de los recursos hídricos del istmo centroamericano" (PACADIRH). with LANBO (INBO regional network).

It is proposed that the Associated Program be directed by a Steering Committee made up of the members of INBO Liaison Bureau and GWP representatives (in particular the Presidents of the RTACs concerned), of representatives of bi or multilateral cooperation agencies, funding all or part of the actions included in Outputs 1 to 4, and of those of large international organizations supporting initiatives focusing on Integrated Water Resources Management at the level of river basins, (e.g. the United Nations Organizations, OAS, IWMI, PACADIRH/CCAD, etc.)

This Technical Unit would gather not only experts from INBO and LANBO Permanent Technical Secretariats but also specialists from GWP's CEE and SAS-TAC and experts from different countries or organizations interested in supporting the "Integrated Water Resources Management – Developing and Strengthening Basin Organizations" Associated Program.

The program is proposed for a 5-years period. Indeed, some projects ought to be started as soon as possible.

In order to improve clarity, allow for partial funding and launch the program components, the budget is divided into 4 parts A, B, C, D (corresponding to the 4 expected outputs).

A fifth table E, shows expenses relative to INBO proper. These expenditures are taken into account in the Network yearly budget. The General Assembly in Krakow (end of September 2000) must approved this budget together with the new statutes and vote the corresponding budget.

As regards this associated program, expenditures are divided into two categories:

1. the financing of members' meetings during such and such project (direct cooperation actions for instance). This mainly generates travel costs and per diems;
2. the funding of studies and training costs, i.e. intellectual services generating fees in man/day or man/month,

Therefore, some expenses are repetitive and can be presented in "modules" usable according to the development of each item of each program budget. The following unit costs could be adopted:

• round long distance travels, inclusive connecting flights from the organization location to the nearest international airport: average cost US $ 1520/u,
• daily allowance (whenever due): US $ 152/d on the average. Sojourn being calculated on the basis of 8 days (to include a Saturday thus allowing cheaper tariffs for long distance flights and taking into account the connecting time required),
• fee for a junior expert: US $ 580/d , and US $ 91,000/year;
• fee for a senior expert: US $ 700/d, and US $ 112,000/year.

All these figures can be discussed and shall vary depending on the case. Each project item will be followed up by one of the program partners (INBO, or LANBO, or CEE-TAC, or SAS-TAC, etc.) according to its capacity in gathering the financial resources required. For instance, the cost of a training program organized by CEE-TAC within the framework of Output n° 3 (Synthesis of knowledge and know-how) could differ from the cost of the same program organized by LANBO.

Module n°1 Hypothesis :

Module n°2 Hypothesis : an average budget for professional workshop with coordinator and specialist is :

Module n°2 bis: an average mission could include :

Module n°3: average budget

Module n°4: Hypothesis : An average budget to improve a river basin include:

• Feasibility studies,
• Technical support (institutionalization expert, lawyer, network officer, irrigation, water and sanitation experts, economist, community specialist, social framework experts,
• Institutional reform
• Geographically referenced data base (when appropriate)
• Development of GIS (when appropriate)
• Etc.

Due to the experience in the following case : Aegean rivers (TURKEY), Sabarmati river (GUJARAT, INDIA), Rio San Juan & Rio Coco (NICARAGUA, HONDURAS & COSTA RICA), Irtysh river (KAZAKHSTAN), Vistula river (POLAND, UKRAINE, BIELORUSSIA), total cost can be comprised between US $ 320,000 (Irtysh) and 1,200,000 (Vistula) on a 3 year period, plus 10% of local costs borne by the beneficiaries.

For the purpose of the project, we propose to retain US $ 600,000, that is to say US $ 200,000/year.

(*) ASUMPTIONS TO BE ENDORSED

Year 1: one DC initiated by SAMTAC, plus one initiated by SASTAC = 2 DC

Year 2: plus one by CEETAC, plus one by SASTAC = 4 DC

Year 3: plus one by SAMTAC, plus one by SASTAC = 6 DC

Year 4: plus one of each regional networks including AFRICA ones : 10 DC

Direct Cooperation between two partners may generate the following costs:

(*) ASUMPTIONS TO BE ENDORSED

Year 1: one BO initiated by SAMTAC, plus one initiated by SASTAC = 2 BO

Year 2: plus one by CEETAC, plus one by SASTAC = 4 BO

Year 3: plus one by SAMTAC, plus one by SASTAC = 6 BO

Year 4: minus 2, plus one of each regional networks = 6 BO

Etc.

(*) Technical support to NRDCs is made of 2 missions of 15 days twice a year per country, and 2 in & out travel per year.

(**) Regional CEE and Latino-American networks work with Latin characters.

As the financial status of the RBOs seldom allow them to spend money on outside cooperation activities, there is a need for donor money

• to run a small secretariat,
• to finance the proposed activities

1. Twinning for direct cooperation between existing, future or pilot basin organizations.

The total budget for 22 different operations within 5 years and 3 regions is US $ 3,201,000

That is to say an AVERAGE of US $ 145,000 per operation;

This activity is partly operational within INBO members, and when so, 100% funded by the twines.

2. Professional Support from existing organizations to help with the setting up, development and progress of other existing or new organizations.

The total budget for 20 different operations within 5 years and 3 regions is US $ 8,250,000

That is to say an AVERAGE of US $ 412,000 per operation;

This activity is partly operational (i.e. Aegean rivers basin, Sabarmati river basin, Irtysh river basin, etc.) and then 100% funded.

New development are opened (i.e. Vistula river basin, Rio San Juan & Rio Coco river basins).

3. Synthesis of available knowledge and know-how. This activity would provide a good input to the toolbox and shall be conducted in close relationship with the FFA Toolbox team.

The total budget for 15 different operations within 5 years and 3 regions is US $ 1,320,000

That is to say an AVERAGE of US $ 88,000 per operation;

This activity is not yet operational.

4. Networking of documentation systems. This again is very close to the Toolbox initiative, and is implemented in close cooperation and without overlapping.

   The total budget for 16 different operations within 5 years and 3 regions is US $ 3,197,000

   That is to say an AVERAGE of US $ 199,000 per operation.

   This activity is partly operational: the Central unit (1/2 of the total budget) is 100% funded. Sums are already raised to begin in Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary and Brazil.