West Balkans : West Balkans Drina River Basin Management Project

Overview & Synopsis

The transboundary Drina River in the Western Balkans is the most important tributary of the Sava River and is part of the Danube River Basin. The Drina River Basin (DRB), shared by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia, is central for the environmental, economic, and social development of the three riparian countries and the Balkan Peninsula. The Drina River and its tributaries are part of the larger Sava River Basin, the major river basin of Southeastern Europe, which is the home for 8.1 million people and covers about 97,200 square kilometers extending also into Croatia and Slovenia and northern Albania. The Drina River is known for floods and droughts with significant impacts on livelihoods and the local economies. Particularly in 2014, devastating floods along the Drina River and its tributaries significantly affected the economies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. The West Balkans Drina River Basin Management Project aimed to “improve mechanisms and capacity of the Project Countries to plan and manage the transboundary DRB, incorporating climate change adaptation. It mainly financed technical assistance to support (i) multistate cooperation in transboundary DRB management; (ii) pilot investments for integrated DRB management, including flood and drought management and climate change resilience; and (iii) project management and monitoring and evaluation. The project was financed through grants by the Global Environment Facility and the Special Climate Change Fund. It was the result of several years of World Bank engagement and dialogue on water resource management (WRM) in the Balkans and the first transboundary project to be jointly implemented by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. The World Bank continues to support the three countries through a follow-on multiphase programmatic approach (MPA) that seeks to strengthen transboundary water cooperation and improve navigability and flood protection in the Sava and Drina Rivers Corridors (Sava and Drina Rivers Corridors Integrated Development Program). This assessment offers the following lessons: (i) The long-term success of transboundary WRM is more likely to be achieved if the engagement is strategic and sustained. (ii) Cooperation around transboundary water resources can be strengthened and sustained if there is a neutral broker to facilitate agreement on priorities and benefit sharing. (iii) If institutional capacity varies, applying a uniform set of interventions across all beneficiary countries is not likely to be effective. (iv) If relevant hydrometeorological institutions are more mature, the application and utility of modern hydrometeorological services are likely to be more sophisticated and beneficial.