The Oudin-Santini Act, introduced in 2005, allows local authorities to devote 1% of their water and sanitation budget to funding international solidarity programmes. Applying it is an essential lever, because it opens the door to grants from the water agencies and so tops up the funding of development programmes.

There are two possible routes:

Either the project is led by an NGO, which receives funds from a French local authority and from the corresponding water agency and then carries out the international solidarity project.

Or, the French local authority leads the project in partnership with a local authority abroad and applies to the relevant water agency. This is what is known as decentralised cooperation. In this case the water agency's contribution can be higher, allowing a larger budget and greater involvement in delivering the cooperation programme. The NGO then acts as project management support.