The vision of the proposed Sustainable Hydropower Foundation is that hydropower is developed and managed on a sustainable basis, to contribute to the Millenium Development Goals of meeting the world’s water and energy needs.

The mission of the proposed Sustainable Hydropower Foundation is to promote sustainable hydropower development and management, and to facilitate information sharing and the provision of expert assessment for the advancement of sustainable hydropower.

Foundation Guiding Principles

• Hydropower has a significant contribution to make to alleviating poverty and providing both water and energy.
  
• Hydropower schemes from the small to the large can be sustainable.
  
• For a hydropower scheme to be sustainable it must address all three aspects of economic, social and environmental sustainability.
  
• Promotion of good practice is a positive measure to advance sustainable hydropower.
  
• Objective evaluation and assessment should be undertaken.
  
• The test of sustainability needs to apply basic sustainability principles to all schemes, but recognises local and regional contexts.
  
• Issues and management of aspects of sustainability need to be considered individually yet do not exist in isolation.
  
• Information of benefit to advancing sustainability in the hydropower sector should be shared and accessible.

Key Activities

The Sustainable Hydropower Foundation would contribute to improving the development and management of sustainable hydropower schemes by:

• the provision of information to the industry, regulators, researchers, consultants and the general public on the key elements of sustainability in the hydropower sector;
  
• the identification and assessment of schemes according to sustainability criteria; and
  
• recognition of schemes that provide examples to the hydropower sector of how different aspects of sustainability can be well managed.

The primary mechanism to achieve the Foundation’s mission would be through the Sustainable Hydropower Website.

A major benefit of the activities of the Foundation would be helping to advance an auditing capability for the hydropower sector, and facilitation of the uptake of auditing by scheme owners and operators.