Strengthening Water Sector Governance for Resilient and Inclusive Growth (BRIGHT)

Ethiopia’s dramatic topography and diverse climate create a complex mosaic of ecosystems, with 12 major and 48 minor agro-ecological zones. The country’s 12 major river basins hold an estimated annual water flow of 122 billion cubic metres—making water one of Ethiopia’s most valuable natural resources.

The Ten-Year Development Plan (TYDP) prioritises the strategic use of water for irrigation, hydropower, manufacturing, eco-tourism, and WASH services. However, increasing demand, climate change, watershed degradation, pollution, and weak institutional capacity for integrated water resources management (IWRM) pose serious challenges and risk worsening water scarcity.

The BRIGHT project aims to address these issues by strengthening basin governance and promoting sustainable water management. Direct beneficiaries include the Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE), Basin Authorities (BAOs), Regional Water Bureaus (RWBs), and communities within the target basins—reaching around 2.5 million people directly and over 50 million indirectly across five key basins.

Objectives

The general objective of the BRIGHT project is to improve Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the basins of Abbay, Awash, Rift Valley, Omo-Gibie and Tekezie. Thus, the project-level impact of the BRIGHT project is realisation of improved knowledge-based management and functioning of IWRM for climate-resilient landscapes, inclusive livelihoods improvement and development in the selected basins.

More specifically, the project seeks to:

• Strengthen the technical, managerial, regulatory, infrastructural and logistical capacities of the MoWE and the selected BAOs and concerned regional bureaus in integrated water and land resources management.

• Design and have in place a well-functioning Basin Information System for IWRM and generate additional evidence to fill knowledge gaps in the selected river basins.

• Support the revision/preparation of basin development plans and facilitate implementation by supporting priority and high impact IWRM projects in target basins.

• Establish climate-smart IWRM learning watersheds in the target basins.

Project activities

• Enhancing IWRM capacity of the MoWE, Basin Administration Offices and Regional Bureaus.

• Supporting the establishment of a basin information system for IWRM and generating additional evidence to fill knowledge gaps in the selected river basins .

• Supporting the preparation/revision of basin development plans and facilitating implementation by supporting priority and high impact IWRM projects in target basins.

Expected Results

• Strengthened institutional and governance capacity of the MoWE, Basin Administration Offices and Regional Bureaus for implementation of IWRM.

• Enhanced human capital capacity of the MoWE, Basin Administration Offices and Regional Bureaus for implementation of IWRM. 

• Enhanced infrastructural, technological and logistical capacities of the MoWE, Basin Administration Offices and Regional Bureaus.

• Stocktaking available knowledge and generating additional empirical evidence to fill knowledge gaps.

• Development of basin information system.

• Revision/preparation of basin development plans for target basins.

• Implementation of basin development plans by supporting priority and high-impact IWRM projects in the target basins.