The Solidarity and Sustainable Development Fund for Water, known as the "Water Fund": Lyon showing solidarity

This is what you do...

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 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.

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.

The minimum input from the Water Fund for a project is set at EUR 10 000.

• 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.

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.

The Water Fund intervenes in 16 eligible countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Guinea Conakry, Haiti, Laos, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Palestinian Territories, Togo, Vietnam.