We have been commissioned by the World Bank to undertake a major water resource study entitled “Cubango-Okavango Multi-Sector Investment Opportunity Analysis (MSIOA)”. Building on past studies for the basin organisation OKACOM, the MSIOA study seeks to determine a development pathway which will meet national development and poverty reduction objectives, without compromising the ecosystem services of the basin and diminishing the Cubango-Okavango’s global value. The study will include consideration of options from outside the basin, such as water transfers from other basins or trade in power and agricultural products, to contribute new ways of resolving the difficult trade-offs between competing development strategies in the Cubango-Okavango basin itself.