This document discusses integrated water resource management (IWRM) and its implementation in the Mekong River Basin. It notes that IWRM is context dependent and that there is often a difference between best practices and political will. Decentralization is recommended to empower local communities, incorporate diverse knowledge, increase public awareness and acceptance, and avoid opposition movements. However, local knowledge alone is not sufficient and interscalar dialogue is needed. The document examines country-specific water uses in the basin and challenges implementing IWRM due to a lack of stakeholder empowerment, dialogue, and rubber stamping of plans without community input. Successful governance requires stakeholder involvement and avoiding conflicting goals across scales.
2. Introduction
Governance sets the boundaries within
which people operate
IWRM is context dependant
Difference between and best practice
and political will
3. Why Decentralise?
Focus on empowerment
Opening up to a diverse knowledge base
Increasing public awareness and
acceptance
Lack of inclusion provokes opposition
movements slowing progress
4. No such thing as local
any more
Local knowledge is
necessary but not
sufficient
Need for interscalar
dialogue
(Arnstein, 1969)
5.
6. Country-specific uses of water in the
Mekong River Basin
China Hydro-electrical power
Laos Hydro-electrical power
Thailand Urban water source
Agricultural irrigation
Cambodia Maintaining fisheries
Agricultural irrigation
Navigation
Vietnam Agricultural irrigation
Prevent sea water encroachment in delta
Hydro-electrical power
10. Rubber Stamping
Selling IWRM gets you support
Communities are ignored in strategic
plans
Does not cost you anything to mention
IWRM.
11. Conclusions
Successful governance depends
stakeholder involvement
Conflicting goals at all scales can
damage partnerships
IWRM used as a rubber stamp.
IWRM success is limited to the extent to
which it is allowed by state bodies.
12. References
Arnstein, S. (1969) A Ladder Of Citizen Participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35
(4): 216-224. Available from:
Earth Observatory of Singapore, (2015) Mekong River Basin Initiative (MRBI): Case studies of climate
change adaptation projects and an assessment of transboundary issues in the Lower Mekong Basin
[online].
Grumbine, R., Dore, J. and Xu, J. (2012) Mekong hydropower: drivers of change and governance
challenges. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 10 (2): 91-98. Available from:
Korea Times, (2010) Mekong River Commission [online]. Available from:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2010/04/195_63648.html [Accessed 16 March
2015]
Kurlantzick,J (2011) In Southeast Asia, Big Dams Raise Big Concerns, The Council on Foreign
Relations. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
Lebel, L. and Daniel, R. (2007) M-power book series on water governance in the Mekong region.
Mekong: Mekong Press
Mekong River Commission, (2009) STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION and MEKONG RIVER COMMISSION.
Phnom Penh
Stimson.org, (2015) Dams and Food Security in the Mekong: Site Visits to the Xayaburi and Don Sahong
Dam Projects | Spotlight | The Stimson Center | Pragmatic Steps for Global Security [online].
13.
14.
15.
16.
17. Trust Issues
“Laos' actions not only represent a breach of
trust, but threaten to undermine already
fledgling efforts at regional cooperation.”
Kurlantzick (2011)
“The MRC member countries agree to
cooperate in all fields of sustainable
development… on the Mekong River Basin”
Mekong River Commission (2009)
Here I’ll be discussing water governance and in particular Integrated water resource management.
Governance sets the boundaries within which people operate. It identifies who is responsible for making which decision, and defines the process they use to make legitimate decisions. For the last half a century the notion of integration and dialogue between varying scales, stakeholders and displines has been best practice in many fields.
Regarding water this is known as integrated water resource management.
Iwrm is not an off the shelf solution. Instead projects are context dependent, success is often reliant on the level of stakeholder involvement and the extent to which traditional power structures are devolved and decentralised.
As of yet no project has effectively put all of the principles in practice yet – at least on a large geographical level.
Instead as we’ll see looking at initiatives on the Mekong there is a multitude of discrepancies between practice and best principles.
Lack of relevant stakeholders, lack of will to devolve power and hampering by questionable democratic intent. Has led to an intricate stalemate. Where progress is often limited to academic discussion.
Ideal, water governance consists of the interaction between governments, large businesses, political parties, and civil organisations. These actors are involved in continuing debates and in socio and political confrontations around how water and essential water services should be governed, by whom, and for whom. These confrontations are at the heart of the process of democratic water governance, which is characterized not only by dialogue and negotiation but also, unfortunately, by growing uncertainty and protracted social and political conflicts. Partipatory approaches like this often have a strong focus on empowerment of ordinary people, people consuming the water.
The numerous benefits of stakeholder participation includes improving public acceptance of decisions, improving the quality of alternatives because of the wider range of expertise available, reducing the risk that opposition from disaffected groups will delay implementation of decisions, and increasing the likelihood of compliance with agreements reached during negotiations. Building participation in water resources decisions can also contribute to promoting good governance and accountability in decision-making.
It is often difficult to implement this in practice. New river basin organizations are sometimes opposed because they would reduce the power of those in national institutions. Decentralization is particularly difficult in transboundary basins, where institutions at different stages of development and with different policy and legal imperatives need to coordinate.
Engage stakeholders at all levels
So now were are planning to engage at all levels but this is often not the outcome. Instead as outlined by Arnstein in her ladder of participation there are differing levels of engagement ranging from non-involvement to full citizen power. Good decisions often need to balance the interests of multiple stakeholders. You need to apply the right mix of expertise to them. They must align to overall strategy while still making sense to people at the coalface.
Some situations favour enterprise-wide consistency and efficient use of scarce or specialised skills. Centralised oversight works best here.
In other situations, local knowledge, short command chains and fast decisions are more important, so devolved oversight makes more sense.
Differing arguments on localised implementation. There is No such thing as local anymore, why are communities aloud to drive agenda if we now live in a global world
Equal parts in decision making are required. Local institutions are necessary but not sufficient. Same is true for a hierarchal approach.
Other issues are present, Can you have authority without responsibility? Who defines the mandate and responsibility of local organisations? At what stage is the government culpable? Ambiguity over this has resulted in central governing bodies not giving authority to collective bodies
Mekong River commission
Set up in 1995.
Comprised of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam.
“As a regional facilitating and advisory body governed by water and environment ministers of the four countries”
“In dialog with China and Myanmar”
To find out, IWMI has reviewed new water policies, plans and laws, and assessed participation, the new water ?apex bodies?, and integrated water resources management (IWRM). The findings show that top-down state policies based on ?blueprints? are widely applied in a one-size-fits-all approach, without taking local realities into account. Water planning is still largely expert-driven, and focused on procedures and targets. There is little room for decision-making that is based on negotiations between users, line agencies, NGOs and politicians, for example. Although much mention is made of participation and IWRM, little is being done on the ground.
The two most downstream countries, for instance, require river flows to continue at close to natural levels, to maintain the fisheries and rice production in the Delta and prevent salinity intrusion in the estuary. Upstream, Thailand would like to take more water from the river, whilst Laos and China propose to build dams that will change flow patterns and volumes. An economic-hydrological analysis suggested that the benefits from some developments could be outweighed by losses. For instance, irrigated rice production could nett less in income than the loss it could cause in fish, invertebrates, plants and other nutritional resources.
Greater participation by local people in water management does not seem to be a goal in China and Vietnam. Their water laws make no mention of the concept, because it is assumed that all citizens are represented by their local administrative units and that people participate through these channels.
In Laos, Thailand and Cambodia, however, various attempts have been made to involve local farmers or water user groups more in the management of the countries’ large-scale irrigation schemes. But the results of these attempts, known as either participatory irrigation management (PIM) or management transfer, have been mixed. Shortcomings arise because farmers often don’t gain real empowerment, new roles, or better control over their water supply. As has been seen in Thailand, farmers’ access to water often doesn’t improve because they don’t have any control over the way water is distributed and allocated at higher levels in the system.
Consultancy firms in Thailand for example has been seen to ‘market’ conventional infrastructure projects as IWRM. These claimed to fully involve local stakeholders, but actually measured ‘participation’ in terms of the number of meetings held to determine local issues such as people’s domestic supply needs. By contrast, people are little consulted about the large-scale projects that are being planned or developed. These are classic examples of ‘business as usual’ being given a new IWRM label to attract extra funds or increase support at home and abroad. It doesn’t cost anything to make a lot of references to IWRM in policies and laws; but in reality, IWRM involves redistributing power, changing mindsets, and capacity-building—all of which require considerable time and effort. One way forward might be to avoid applying IWRM to all basins in a country irrespective of whether it is needed or not. Instead, decision makers should consider focusing efforts and resources on basins which have obvious local competition and allocation problems.
Water governance is complex because of its context dependence. It is reliant on maintained stakeholder involvement. Initial successs often fail when people become disenfranchised with minimal progress.
IWRM is a factor of political will and democratic intent. The marginalised and impoverished must be given power, they are not given power because they have no experience, it is a vicious cycle.
IRWM has become a rubber stamp for broad scoped strategic developments
Laos’ new policies are said to include “fully decentralized ‘bottom up’ participatory planning within the governmental system”. However, participation is actually limited, even when formally organized, as was the case for the Xayaburi dam.
Across the region, and despite much official mention of participation, mindsets haven’t changed much. Farmers often see participatory irrigation management as a state scheme, especially when their access to water has not improved. Likewise, irrigation agency staff often don’t believe that farmers are capable of running schemes themselves. So if we discard the limited implementation, we are left with a lot of IWRM
Because water and sanitation service provision and water resources management takes place in unique, complex socio-economic contexts and solutions need to be realistic. Successful implementation of water reform requires that all stakeholders involved, especially the end users, can have their say in decision-making processes. The competing interests of different actors must be addressed for decisions reached to be viable and robust for the long-term. Top-down decision making can be perceived as being imposed upon local actors and make policies difficult to implement effectively. Further, local actors often know the challenges they face best. Decentralisation, dialoguing, participation and partnerships are therefore critical to build awareness, acceptance and support for a reform process to move forward
