Transboundary Waters

Part 2 of the Basin Roundtable series focused on innovative and new approaches to financing shared water resources, tackling challenges such as high perceived risk and the difficulty of monetizing cooperative benefits. Discussions featured perspectives from the World Bank, CEO Water Mandate, Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du fleuve Gambie (OMVG), Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Highlighted solutions included public-private partnerships, blended finance, guarantees, and bonds to attract investment, alongside corporate initiatives to strengthen water resilience in priority basins. Examples ranged from regional strategies like the Blue Peace Financing Initiative and integrated development plans to donor-supported blended finance models and the role of global conventions in facilitating funding and technical assistance. The session emphasized how creative financial instruments and multi-stakeholder collaboration can unlock sustainable investment for transboundary water management.

Part 1 of the Basin Roundtable series examined conventional financing mechanisms for transboundary water resources development. The discussion assessed the structure, adequacy, and accessibility of existing funding sources, while identifying financial and institutional barriers that hinder implementation. Stakeholder contributions provided insights into these challenges and informed strategies for strengthening cooperative water governance at the basin level. Examples included the Mekong River Commission’s Mekong Fund and the Danube River Basin financing approach under the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) framework, illustrating the complexity of sustaining collaboration through traditional streams. Perspectives from IHE Delft, European Commission Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), Scientific Information Center of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia (SIC ICWC), and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) enriched the dialogue, offering diverse institutional viewpoints. Finally, the event explored opportunities to broaden financing options, emphasizing public funding, diversification of sources, and the potential of public-private partnerships to address infrastructure costs in shared basins.

The world is grappling with increasing conflicts, climate change, disasters, and biodiversity loss, which the World Bank aims to address by prioritizing water through its new Global Challenge Program. Given that half of the world’s water is transboundary, cooperation on shared water resources is crucial for development, climate resilience, and peace. In response, the World Bank and its partners have launched the Global Facility for Transboundary Water Cooperation to provide expertise and support for managing these shared water resources more effectively.

Effective water management at all levels is key to creating a world free of poverty and ensuring climate resilience, but transboundary water management faces challenges such as asymmetries in information, capacity, and risks to financiers. The session aims to explore innovative financing mechanisms, such as bonds, guarantees, and water funds, to support transboundary cooperation and address these challenges. It will focus on increasing financial flows from both public and private sectors while identifying gaps in current financing approaches and risk reduction strategies.

Targeting stakeholders involved in transboundary river basin management, this virtual roundtable focused on how to approach cooperative drought management within the context of transboundary waters. Technical experts, as well as practitioners, illustrated the complexity of droughts and how these challenges have been addressed in different regions.

Targeting a cross-section of stakeholders (river basin organizations, multilateral organizations, civil society, private sector, and academia), the Forum identified ways for transboundary water management to address joint development priorities and deliver regional and global public goods. The Forum explored opportunities for deepening cooperation over transboundary waters. The Forum allowed stakeholders to reflect on how the international community can better respond to transboundary waters challenges through their programs, including the World Bank’s Global Facility for Transboundary Water Cooperation.