Luso American Foundation has focused on international rivers and shared river basins as a program priority for about ten years, including organizing a number of international conferences and workshops on the subject and the publishing of two major books on the subject. Whereas we have not concetrated on urban water and sanitation issues; we have focused on coastal oceans and estuaries, which today are considered to be linked to river systems as part of a whole.

Luso American Foundation has focused on international rivers and shared river basins as a program priority for about ten years, including organizing a number of international conferences and workshops on the subject and the publishing of two major books on the subject. We have not focused on urban water and sanitation issues. We also focus on coastal oceans and estuaries, which today are considered to be linked to river systems as part of a whole.

While the focus of our conferences and of the books are broadly international in nature (using cases from Europe, the U.S. and Asia) they have focused partly on the Spain-Portugal river system and disputes between these two countries over the use of river water (all Portugal's rivers flow from Spain). Our first large conference (2000) and the resulting book looked at international rivers and the potential for conflicts and the multi stakeholder dimensions which depend on river basins. A number of international river systems (including the Portuguese rivers) were examined in detail by specialists. We have been fortunate to have Andreas Kraemer as an invited speaker in the past and contributor to the books.

The second major conference (2002) and book focused on implementing management regimes for international rivers, how to satisfy multi stakeholder interests, social justice, and conflict avoidance in existing river management, like Danube, Mekong, Columbia, and Reine.

For the future, the third conference and resulting book scheduled for 2005 will focus on international river legislation, sustainability, justice. Beyond this we may do smaller workshops on the subject if partners and funding permit.

Lastly, we have funded NGO work in Portugal and Spain to map organized interest group work with public participation in the two countries and designing ways to strengthen public awareness and participation.

For our work we have contributed financial support for travel and lodging of speakers, technical support, organization, and support for NGO activity and funded the publishing of the books.

Examples are given above. Projects have been of the conferencing and publishing style as above with the intent of bringing new information to addressing the challenges of "hydro diplomacy" globally, and with strong interest of helping Portuguese leaders work with Spain, but our work, our books, should have relevance worldwide wherever the subject is studied and where river basins require experienced and equitable attention. With this in mind, we will continue to take interest in new initiatives that can bring new knowledge to Portugal, and others, new research on managing rivers and estuaries, maintaining ecosystems, protecting multi stakeholder interests.

Fulfillment of BFSD Members’ Project criteria:

• International or scalable on an international level:
              Issues of fresh water and solutions to the problems of 
              growth and development are clearly not limited to a given
              nation or region

• Multi-cultural or adaptable for different cultures:
              Locally relevant versions of strategies employed elsewhere 
              are easily developed and communicated.

• Contribution to humanity / natural heritage:
              Preserving the integrity of the (especially fresh) water
              cycle and the manifold ecosystems that depend upon them

• Sustainable Development aspect: 
              See Above

Participation:

• What type of collaborative effort might be possible?
             Bellagio can play a useful role by showing leadership in
             organizing focus groups or work groups to develop actions
             that bring together leading civil society interests, 
             foundations, think tanks, to reflect on endangered river
             systems, or potential conflicts. Bellagio can develop a
             course on sustainable river management, and give it in
             different countries.

• What elements might additional partners bring?
             Luso-Americana promotes student interchange on this
             subject, but mostly with the U.S., so we can fund
             international research projects. If there are initiatives of the
             Bellagio Forum, in which Portuguese specialists are needed
             Luso-Americana can support that cost. The challenge of
             Africa is always great, and Portuguese speaking Africa has a
             number of very complex river management challenges in
             Mozambique, Angola and Cape Verde. Bellagio members
             interested in looking at this issue in Africa would be welcome
             as partners.

Additional Information: 

Contact Info:

Luso-American Development Foundation
Charles A. Buchanan
Jr Rua do Sacramento à Lapa,
21 1249-090 Lisbon, Portugal
Tel.: +351 21 397 27 66
Fax: +351 21 392 87 72
e-mail: flad@individual.eunet.pt

or

Ecologic – Institute for European Environmental Policy
R. Andreas Kraemer
Pfalzburger Str. 43-44 1
0717 Berlin, Germany
Tel.: +49 30 86 880 0
Fax: +49 30 86 880 100
e-mail: kraemer@ecologic.de