Coca-Cola Foundation Joins Godavari Initiative as Next Basin Champion
The Godavari Initiative (TGI) is expanding its collective action platform to address water sustainability in India's Godavari River Basin. The initiative, which was established two years ago with Diageo India as the first Basin Champion, has evolved into one of India's prominent basin-level collective action platforms.
The TGI was conceived around the premise that water must be addressed at the scale at which it functions, the basin, rather than only through individual projects. The initiative brings together corporations, government institutions, non-profits, think tanks, technical organizations, and ecosystem enablers to strengthen source sustainability and secure a more resilient future for the Godavari.
The Coca-Cola Foundation has announced its support for TGI as the next Basin Champion, building on the foundation established with Diageo India. The transition reflects the philosophy at the heart of TGI: institutional leadership may evolve, but the collective purpose remains constant.
Carlos Pagoaga, President of The Coca-Cola Foundation, stated that 'healthy watersheds are critical to local communities.' He emphasized the importance of aligning corporate and philanthropic resources with public priorities and basin-level institutions. Government participation is central to TGI's model, which has been developed in alignment with the United Nations Global Compact CEO Water Mandate and the Water Resilience Coalition.
The next phase of TGI will focus on deeper on-ground action, stronger government convergence, basin intelligence, Nature-based Solutions, collaborative investment pathways, and measurable outcomes across priority landscapes. The initiative aims to develop a working, scalable, and replicable collective action model for river basins across India.
TGI's two-year milestone also marks the reconstitution of the initiative as an independent not-for-profit institution with its own Board and governance architecture. This evolution ensures that TGI remains larger than any individual partner, funding cycle, or project portfolio, providing a common platform for successive corporate partners, governments, technical organizations, non-profits, and communities to contribute.
The Water Stewardship Dialogue, which brought together senior leaders from industry, government, civil society, technical institutions, and the development sector in Mumbai, closed on a proposition increasingly relevant to corporate India: site-level efficiency remains important, but lasting water security depends upon the resilience of the basin around it.