ABSTRACT
The institutional structure of the large South American La Plata River basin started with the 1969 La Plata Basin Treaty, and it is at present a collection of bodies and commissions which behave autonomously. The treaty is not driven towards the comprehensive water management of the basin, and its purposes remain ambitious while at the same time rather declamatory. A few other river basins share La Plata Basin features, among them the Amazon, Congo, Danube, Mekong, and Nile Basins, and are analyzed in order to draw a fruitful comparison and to extract lessons learned out of their experience. Institutional architecture, decision-making structure, and funding are identified as decisive elements relevant for the efficient development of the La Plata Basin and sibling river basins organizations.
