Financial Sustainability Study

One of the biggest challenges to any international cooperative undertaking is its ability to become financially sustainable. Costs are associated with coordinating and supporting even decentralized and voluntary participation of members. IABIN was mandated by the Summit of the Americas process without a budgeting mechanism. Funding provided to date has focused on support for individual short-term efforts. Although an increasing number of nations have committed to the development of IABIN and will support it with in-kind contributions, implementation of IABIN as an integrated network has been hampered by the lack of a recurring financial base. Development of additional projects, capacity building throughout the region, and implementation of a secretariat to oversee and coordinate network development has not been possible.  

IABIN participants had suggested and discussed various options regarding sources of continuous funding, but no particular strategies had been selected or pursued beyond being mentioned in the discussions. To begin the process of establishing recurring funding, the U.S. Agency for International Development funded two contractors to investigate and recommend a financial sustainability strategy for IABIN. The findings, which are detailed in their Final Report [Word | html], will be incorporated into the PDF project.

Terms of Reference for the study can be viewed here.

More on this study

Final Report
[Word | PDF]

Terms of Reference

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