State of River Basin Reporting: Establishing the Baseline and Mechanism to Track Progress in the Source to Sea Continuum
“UNDP, through its Water and Ocean Governance Programme and through its broad network of partners can facilitate the dissemination of good practices in the implementation of the State of the River Basin (SORB) reporting system and its replication in other related programs, particularly in collaboration with GEF International Water,” says Dr. Akiko Yamamoto, Regional Team Leader, Environment Team, Asia and the Pacific, UNDP-Bangkok Regional Hub.
The SORB reporting system was launched with the participation and support from GEF, UNDP, the ASEAN Secretariat, ASEAN Working Group on Water Resources Management, participating ASEAN Member States and local governments from the priority river basins of the GEF/UNDP/ASEAN Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) Project and other partners.
There was recognition among the ASEAN countries (e.g., Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines and Viet Nam) on the benefits of establishing a regular reporting system with broad stakeholder engagement to support the implementation of IRBM programs.
The SORB reporting system complements and enhances existing reporting systems of local and national governments.
Integrating the State of the Coasts Reporting and State of River Basin Reporting can showcase the operationalization of source-to-sea management.
Data accessibility and availability were identified as a common challenge across the ASEAN countries.
The session established the need for the following:
1) Establish and / or strengthen data and information management system with adequate investments on human and financial resources to support the establishment and implementation of the SORB reporting system.
2) Establish coherence on the scope and timeline SORB reporting with the local government development and planning cycle to maintain its relevance.
3) That the SORB reporting system is a work in progress and will continue to be improved in response to the need and context of the river basins.
4) Alignment of the SORB indicators with global and regional commitments and targets (e.g., SDGs, Paris Agreement, ASEAN Strategic Action Plan on Water Resources Management, etc.) contributes to the national government’s reporting and reduces duplication in the reporting of progress to global and regional commitments.
The session was held on 6 November at the EAS Congress and aligns with Action 3 of the Xiamen Ministerial Declaration by building synergistic approaches in the application of integrated coastal and / or river basin management, plus integrated pollution reduction and management.
