The Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water, known as the "Water Fund": Lyon showing solidarity
The Water Fund: the Métropole de Lyon has committed to it
The Water Fund - key information
The Oudin Law
This system was put in place by the Oudin Law (2005-95 of 9 February 2005), which allows local authorities responsible for the public services of drinking water supply and sanitation to allocate up to 1% of their "water" budget to decentralised cooperation actions, emergency aid or international solidarity in the areas of water and sanitation.
Present your project to the Water Fund!
This is what you do...
Who can present a project?
Projects can be presented by international solidarity associations (under the French law of 1901) with a head office in France (with the exception of the decentralised cooperation territories of the Métropole de Lyon), able to run local development projects.
What projects are concerned?
Eligibility criteria
Projects which can be funded by the Water Fund must meet the following main criteria:
- Have the objective of creating infrastructures for access to potable water and / or sanitation. The Water Fund will pay particular attention to projects with a sanitation component;
- Represent a local development factor: access to water as a factor of local development;
- Bolster local project management: public ownership of infrastructures put in place, association of the local authority with all the project stages;
- Be consistent with the national context: synergy with the development programmes run in the region and country, compliance with national regulations;
- Give guarantees of long-term management of works: association of final beneficiaries, training, awareness-raising, putting in place of financial and technical management of the works.
Costs eligible for finance from the Water Fund
Costs eligible for finance from the Water Fund concern:
- Prior studies and activities, to a maximum of 10% of the application to the Water Fund;
- The implementation of project infrastructures;
- Support actions (awareness-raising of populations, training, etc.) which will ensure the durability of the infrastructure;
- The costs of implementation, to a maximum of 15% of the application to the Water Fund;
- The administrative costs, to a maximum of 5% of the application to the Water Fund.
Maximum subsidy
A maximum subsidy percentage is set based on the total project sum (with the exception of the decentralised cooperation territories of the Métropole de Lyon).
For projects with a total budget which is:
- EUR 80 000 or less,
- the subsidy from the Water Fund may not be more than 80% of the total budget;
- Between EUR 80 000 and EUR 200 000,
- the subsidy from the Water Fund may not be more than 50% of the total budget;
- Above EUR 200 000,
- the subsidy from the Water Fund will be 20% but have a ceiling of EUR 150 000.
Minimum subsidy
The minimum input from the Water Fund for a project is set at EUR 10 000.
Conditions of contributions to an operation
- The contribution by the Water Fund to an operation must correspond to a minimum of 20% of the total project budget.
- Joint project funding is preferred.
- Financial and / or value-based investment by the beneficiaries is requested.
Project duration
The Water Fund cannot commit to financing projects which take longer than 18 months to implement. It is however possible to divide a project into successive phases and the project holder can then apply to the Fund for subsidies for these phases. In that case, the project holder is required to submit a new application for each new phase.
What is the Water Fund's zone of intervention?
The Water Fund intervenes in 24 eligible countries: Benin, Myanmar, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cambodia, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Guinea Conakry, Haiti, Laos, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Chad, Palestinian Territories, Togo, Vietnam.
How to submit a project?
To apply to the Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water, you need to:
- Send by post, to "Président du Fonds eau" (Métropole de Lyon - Direction eau et déchets - 20 rue du Lac - CS 33569 - 69505 Lyon Cedex 03 - France) the following documents in French:
- A letter of application for a subsidy stating the amount requested;
- 4 copies of a detailed file of the project (Microsoft Word format - 2.0 Mo);
- A project profile (Microsoft Word format - 2.0 Mo) which summarises the file;
- An estimated budget (Microsoft Excel format - 47 ko);
- A certificate that VAT cannot be reclaimed (Microsoft Word format - 25 ko) ;
- The following supporting documents:
- the bank account details of the applicant organisation,
- a copy of the articles of association,
- a list of the directors of the association,
- a copy of the minutes of the last general meeting,
- a copy of the operating accounts for the past two financial years;
- A letter of support for the project from the local authorities concerned.
- Send by e-mail to the Water Fund an electronic version in French of:
- the detailed file of the project,
- the profile of the project and
- the estimated budget.
- These 3 electronic documents must be sent for the application to be considered.
Please note, in order to apply to the Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water, all the documents sent must be written in French..
Resources
- Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water: project holder guide (in French)PDF - 401 Ko
- Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water: "detailed file of the project" form (in French)DOC - 2.0 Mo
- Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water: "project profile" form (in French)DOC - 2.0 Mo
- Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water: "estimated budget" form (in French)XLS - 47 Ko
- Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water: "certificate that VAT cannot be reclaimed" form (in French)DOC - 25 Ko
- Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water: report 2018 (in French)PDF - 1.3 Mo
- Lyon's international relations: Lyon's international action brochurePDF - 6.9 Mo
Remarkable results
Since the Water Fund was created, EUR 13 135 248 has been invested in 248 projects in Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean basin (2018 figures).
These projects have helped provide water and sanitation for over one million nine hundred forty-five thousand beneficiaries.
