The first quarter of 2026 marked a period of strengthened coordination and forward planning for the GEF/UNDP/ASEAN Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) Project, as participating ASEAN Member States and partners continued to build on institutional arrangements at national level and advance pilot interventions at basin level. These shared efforts were shaped by closer inter-agency collaboration, alignment of strategies, and a growing emphasis on translating plans into practical, site-based solutions.

Kampong Bay River Basin is one of the largest coastal river systems that supports over 184,000 people in the southern region of Cambodia. Today, rapid coastal and riverbank developments and the increasing water usage endanger the critical source of water in Kampot Province.

The GEF/UNDP/ASEAN Integrated River Basin Management Project convened a Regional Orientation Workshop on the Development of Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) Toolkit for River Basins in Southeast Asia on 3 June 2025 in Bali, Indonesia to introduce and demonstrate the applications of the toolkit in selected river basins of the project.

This report looks at the development of River Basin Organisations (RBOs) in terms of availability of data, logical demarcation, adequate organisational design, clear mandates, stakeholder participation and transparent decision-making, integrated planning systems and capacity building amongst others. It contains five central chapters including a background on IWRM, Justification for river Basin Management through River Basin Organisations, Types of River Basin Organisations, Decentralisation and Subsidiarity and Development of River Basin Organisations.

One of the major challenges before India is to provide sustainable sanitation and hygiene to its vast diverse and growing population. The Government of India has declared its commitment towards achieving MDG goals and universal sanitation coverage in the country by the year 2022, but with the current rural sanitation coverage of 32.7 percent, this is a challenging task. The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has already risen to the occasion with renewed strategies and approaches.

In spite of local uncertainties about the intensity and variability of climate change, the frequency of extreme phenomena that result from it, and about its impacts on water resources, it is urgent to initiate adaptation measures in river basin management, including transboundary basins. Thus, the drafting of multi-year Management Plans for the Basins of national and transboundary rivers, lakes and aquifers, is becoming a priority and should incorporate these adaptation measures.

The benefits of investing in water, sanitation and hygiene are clear. Households benefit through a range of health, educational, nutritional and broader livelihood impacts; local, regional and national economies benefit from greater economic activity, spending and investment; and over the longer term, households and economies benefit through greater resilience to climate change and shocks. So why are governments and their development partners struggling to meet water and sanitation targets? What factors make it difficult to sustain services at scale?

This thematic brief summarises the key findings of the report relevant to water resources, and water management. It draws exclusively on material from SREX. It includes an assessment of the science and the implications for society and sustainable development. It is intended to be useful for policy-makers, decision-takers and planners, locally, nationally, and regionally. In recognition that these readers will have many competing calls on both their time and budgets, this brief seeks to highlight key thematic findings and learning from SREX.