During the last decade several initiatives aiming at conserving and protecting the water provision of Andean ecosystems have started. However, their implementation has faced a number of limitations on the technical side, mainly due to the lack of knowledge of hydrological processes and Andean-specific developed and tested hydrological models for scenario analyses. The large variability found in ecosystems, climates and geomorphological settings makes hydrological research a complex task and therefore finding answers to these societal problems may take too long, unless a well-coordinated collaboration between research centres, NGOs and local governments takes place. This manuscript outlines the goals of a regional initiative on participatory-based networking of data monitoring; describes how researchers can help local and regional stakeholders and vice versa with data collection, processing, storage and dissemination; highlights the benefits of the collaboration for the scientific community and policy makers; and proposes measures to make the collaboration effective and sustainable. Copyright © 2010 IAHS Press.