Although the countries of the Congo basin are the most “water-rich” of the African continent, they have the lowest rates of safe drinking water access in Africa. Protracted conflict and humanitarian crises, particularly in the DR Congo, have left a large part of the sub-region’s water infrastructure damaged and degraded, and there have been negligible investments in drinking water supply since the early 1990s. The drinking water crisis is particularly acute in rapidly growing peri-urban settlements due to population growth, displacement and rural migration. Consequently, none of the Central African countries are on track to achieving the water targets under the Millennium Development Goal (MDG 7). The proposed project aims to support the countries of Central Africa to safeguard the ecological integrity of critical drinking water sources supplying urban centres by implementing integrated water resources management (IWRM) at micro-catchment level. This pioneering project will be the first-ever experience in the practical application of IWRM in the sub-region. The project approach aims to develop an integrated catchment management approach that is adapted and responds to the specific post-conflict challenges of the Central African context. It comprises “soft” interventions including supporting the coordination role of a river basin committee and developing a management action plan, as well as “hard” field-based interventions to demonstrate and provide the evidence base for watershed-based interventions (e.g. zonation and buffering of water treatment plants and revegetation of priority hotspots). Given the scale of the drinking water crisis in the DR Congo – as well as the fact that 62 percent of the Congo basin lies within its borders – practical interventions conducted under this project will be focused on the DR Congo only. However, efforts will be made to promote the approach in other Central African Countries, in collaboration with the regional river basin organization the International Commission for the Congo-Oubangui-Sangha Basin (CICOS), including by targeting national and regional programming.