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Water, which might appear as a gift from nature, actually needs huge human investment in order to serve the varied and growing global demand on this resource. Creating the investment structures and securing the funding to meet water needs is a key enabling factor to achieving good water governance.

Management instruments are specific methods that enable decision makers to make rational and informed choices when it comes to water management and to tailor their actions to specific situations. Good water governance, according to IWRM principles brings together perspectives and knowledge from different domains. Consequently, the instruments presented here are based on a variety of disciplines such as hydrology, hydraulics, environmental sciences, system engineering, legal sciences, sociology, and economics.

A proper enabling environment establishes the rights and assets of all stakeholders (individuals as well as public and private sector organizations and companies, women as well as men, the poor as well as the better off), while ensuring for environmental quality. The enabling environment essentially consists of “rules of the game” that are laid out as to achieve a sustainable balance between the social, economic and environmental needs for water. These rules can be defined by the use of: (1) Policies; (2) Legislative Frameworks; and (3) Financing and Investment Structures.

The theme for the International Day for Biological Diversity in 2013 chosen by the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) is “Water and Biodiversity”. This theme was chosen to coincide with the United Nations designation of 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation. The International day for Biological Diversity is celebrated annually on the 22nd of May.

Over 100 participants from 22 countries across the Mediterranean attended the recent launch of a joint GWP/OECD project on water governance and financing in the Mediterranean.

The Goascoran River basin is shared by Honduras and El Salvador and is of great environmental, economical and geopolitical importance. In 2006, action was taken to create a multi-sector instance to integrate, influence and coordinate sustainable management of the shared basin. This experience is of great value for IWRM, as the management group establishes a model of work for transboundary management.