The purpose of this Handbook is to assist technical experts and representatives of basin organisations in their use of the Governance and Technical Indicators developed and applied in the context of the KPI project.

This Handbook is designed to be used in conjunction with the indicators provided in the accompanying Scorecards (Excel spreadsheets). It provides information on the role of the indicators, a glossary of the governance and technical indicators. The Handbook also proposes instructions on how to gather and analyse indicator data and how to provide reports on the indicators, as well as how to use them for communication with stakeholders.

The aim of the handbook is also to ensure that a stakeholder who is informed but not necessarily fluent in IWRM or indicator concepts will understand how the performance indicators developed in this project are used, the implications of their use for transboundary IWRM, and the process of developing the indicators within this project.

The development of the handbook thus follows the recommendation of the participants of the project workshop held on occasion of the 5^th World Water Forum in Istanbul in March 2009. Here, a strong demand for more clarifying information was voiced in order to provide for more transparency and reproducibility of the indicator selection process.