Abstract
This paper addresses the situation where a country has already decided that it wants to assign an organization for water resources management. The ways of supplying financial resources and the impacts of financing processes on the behaviour and effectiveness of the organization, and on the people involved, are discussed. The patterns of sectoral use of water illustrate two obvious factors that have significant influence on the financing situation: (i) in a basin where the majority of users are small agriculturists; and (ii) the productivity of water used in agriculture is usually very much lower than that of the water used in industry. The scope of basin organizations falls into three broad categories, which may overlap in some countries: regulatory organizations, infrastructure managers, and service providers. The difference between service-providing organizations and regulatory organizations is briefly discussed. The possible sources of revenue for a basin organization and the principal types of mechanism for funding a purely regulatory basin organization are highlighted. Various issues on the methods used in assessing abstraction or user charges, collecting irrigation service fees, controlling expenditures, as well as the impacts of charging are also discussed.