This document discusses the need for coordinated governance of land and water resources to address food security challenges. As population and demand for food increases, business as usual approaches to managing land and water separately will lead to crossing planetary boundaries for water use and loss of agricultural land. Coordinated governance considers land and water as an integrated system and establishes interrelations in their management at various scales from local to national to regional levels. This helps overcome barriers like sectors working in isolation, improves resource use efficiency, and leads to more coherent policies that secure access to both land and water for improved food production.

1. Coordinating Land and Water Governance in the Context of
Food Security
Madiodio Niasse /Jan Cherlet
Pretoria, 15-16 June 2015

2. Structure of presentation
1. Introduction
2. The food security challenge: what it means for land,
water
3. Changing course?
4. How does coordinated governance of land and water
governance contribute to addressing food security ?
5. Coordinated governance at various scales
6. Conclusion

3. 1. Introduction (1/2)
• IWRM defined by GWP as a process that "promotes the co-ordinated
development and management of water, land and related
resources, in order to maximise the resultant economic and social
welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the
sustainability of vital ecosystems" (GWP, 2000).
• IWRM faced serious challenges with regards to its operationalisation
– too complex, too broad, embraces too much.
• Focussing on “land” dimensions of IRWM help narrow down
the scope of IWRM
• How can you integrated water and land if you are mainly working
from a water angle (risk of putting too much emphasis on water at
the expense land)?
• Collaboration between GWP (focussing more on water,
IWRM) and ILC (focussing more on land, land reform and
governance)

4. 1. Introduction (2/2)
• Looking at land and water governance in general, without
linking it to a specific context or a purpose (governance for
what?) would lead to a boundary-less exercise, hence the
focus on food security
• The notion of “integration” has also been criticised, not only
because of its vagueness, but also because of trying to
“integrate everything”, for the sake of integrating, wile in
some contexts a lighter degree of interaction, of
collaboration, would be enough. Hence the use of “
coordinated” instead integrated.
• A key challenge we have to the theme we are presenting: The
world has been managing land and water separately until
now without any major problems, why should we look at
these resources simultaneously now? What has changed in
the context that justifies the shift?

5. 2. The food security challenge: what it means for
land, water (1/3)
• Since the 2007-2008 food price hikes amidst financial and
energy crises, a key question in the international agenda is
whether the world will be able to feed itself.
• Why bother given past performance?
 Global agricultural production increased 2.5 times between
1960 and 2000 ;
 Target of increasing food production by 60 to 110 % by 2050,
should not be a problem if past performance is replicated;
 Replicability is problematic because past performance was
mainly based on increased productivity per unit of land
 It resulted in the doubling of freshwater withdrawals =>
groundwater depletion / closing river basins;
 It resulted in closing the yield gaps => limited scope for
further increase in productivity

6. • Implications of a business as-usual scenario in land and
water management:
 To meet the projected global food demand, we will
need an additional 5,000 km3 of freshwater per year
in the next 40 years, representing a 70% increase to
present use of 7,130 km3/year
=> crossing the planetary boundary for water use
 If trends in yield gains are not substantially improved,
1 to 1.4 billion ha of new agricultural land (20-30%
increase) will be needed
=> such levels of land conversion carry high
environmental costs (deforestation, loss of
biodiversity, GHG)
2. The food security challenge: what it means for
land, water (2/3)

7. 100
200
300
400
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050
150
250
350
sources: UNESA 2013, FAOSTAT 2013, FAO 2011, HLPE 2012, MEA 2005, Rockstrom et al 2009
Relativegrowth
baseline=1960=100
global cereal production
global extension of cultivated land
global freshwater withdrawal
global extension of irrigated land
2010-2020 : A turning point for land & water
governance?

8. • Aggravating factors:
 Conversion of food crop land to non-food use;
 Expansion of agrofuels: Only 2% of arable land today, but is
expected to increase 4-fold by 2030
 Climate change:
• Loss of land suitable for agriculture
• large areas of farmland and rangeland used for carbon sequestration at
the expense of food production
 Land degradation: If current trends are not reversed, more
than 300 million hectares of agricultural land would be lost by
2050
• The challenges we are faced with calls for novel approaches to
developing, managing and governing land and water, the two key
natural resources that support food production
2. The food security challenge: what it means for
land, water (3/3)

9. • Predicted "perfect storm" (Beddington, 2009): Doomsday
scenario if necessary measures are not taken to avoid the
looming food, water and energy crises.
• In the water and land sectors, navigating the storm will
require among others a breakdown of at least 3 walls:
 Technocratic approaches that ignore political aspects
and vice versa
 Water and land managed in isolation from each other
 Land and water dealt with at the confines of nation-
states in ignorance of the international context
• Overcoming the barriers requires a strategic and more
inclusive governance that reconnects land and water
3. Changing course ? Overcoming barriers

10. • The notion of “coordination”: the idea that some form of
interrelation needs to be established in the management
and governance of land and of water. Three levels:
• concerted governance (information flow)
• interconnected governance (planning and use of water or land
factor in possible implications for the other resource)
• integrated governance: two resources are cohesively
considered as part of one single system.
• The concept of “governance”: the system of actors, rules,
mechanisms and processes through which land and water
are accessed, used, controlled, transferred, and related
conflicts managed.
3. Changing course? Toward coordinated
governance of land and water for sustainable
response to food security challenge

11. • Parallel narratives of virtual water vs virtual land
 Virtual water. From the late 1990s. "Water embedded in key-water-
intensive commodities". The virtual water trade flows typically from water-
rich countries to water-poor countries.
 Virtual land: Kumar & Sigh (2005) observe that the most important
determinant of what is referred to as virtual water was the availability of
arable land, not of water. E.g. Japan, Indonesia etc. vs Australia. => "virtual
land": land embodied in internat. trade. Limitation: e.g. Saudi Arabia.
• Land grabbing vs water grabbing
 land grabbing
 water grabbing
• In both cases, a narrow-sectoral perspective lead to
distorted understanding of the reality.
3. Changing course? Examples of anachronisms in
the uncoordinated approach to land and water

12. • Virtual land and water trade with aim of improving
resource-use efficiency.
• Accounting for water in land allocation decisions. Case of
LSLDs
• Securing land rights to ensure water-use efficiency, and
in particular improve agricultural productivity. Tenure
security of often a necessary but not a sufficient
condition
• Securing land rights to ensure access to water. E.g. of
South Africa
4. How does coordinated governance of land and
water contribute to addressing food security (1/2)

13. • Coordinating water and land management for reducing
land degradation
• Securing women’s land rights, pre-requisite for equitable
access to water for productive use
• Coherence between national and local land use plans
and water development strategies
• Raising the profile of land in integrated river basin
management
4. How does coordinated governance of land and
water contribute to addressing food security (2/2)

14. Scale Land and/or water governance issues Possible benefits of coordinated governance
(I)
Grass-roots
Sub-national
 Inequities in access to land and/or to
water
 Tenure insecurity of land and/or water
 Unsustainable levels of abstraction and
use of land and/or water resources
 Land and water degradation
 Land- and/or water-related conflicts;
 -Poor implementation of national land and
water laws
 -Inconsistencies in land and water tenure
systems
 Securing access to land rights as means of
ensuring greater equity in access to water
achieving;
 Investing in water infrastructure as means of
securing land rights;
 Securing land rights as incentive for sustainable
water conservation and for improved land
productivity;
 Factoring water access rights in land use plan, as
means of preventing or resolving resource use
conflicts (e.g. between farmers, pastoralists and
fisherfolks)
 Greater coherency in local land use plans and
water development strategies;
(II)
Nation/State
 Sub-national inequities in land access and
tenure insecurity
 Formulation of national land- and/or
water- related laws, strategies, action
plans (rural development strategies;
climate adaptation plans; plans against
desertification; poverty reduction
strategies; MDG plans) done in parallel;
 Inconsistencies and incoherencies in
approaches to land and agrarian reform;
water policies and water law reforms
 Water policies and laws are informed by
challenges and risks to land sector and vice
versa;
 Water policies used as enabling environment for
land policy objectives and vice versa;
 Ensure wider citizen input to water and land
policy formulation, with involvement of water-
and land-concerned actors;
 More coherent and inclusive national platform
for food security and poverty reduction
strategies, especially in agrarian economies
5. Coordinated governance at various scales (1/2)

15. Scale Land and/or water governance issues Possible benefits of coordinated governance
(III)
River basins
Regional inter-States
integration groupings
 Typically undefined responsibilities of
River basin organisations on the
management/governance of river basin
land (basin cooperation agreements
typically deal only with water issues);
 National territorial sovereignty clashing
with and constraining water cooperation
for addressing food sovereignty ;
 High occurrence of conflicts in trans-
border land and water use (cross-river
or upstream-downstream water- land-
users);
 Basin cooperation more sensitive to and
supportive of agriculture and food
security needs of riparian states and
communities;
 Fairer allocation of water across sectors
(irrigation, energy, etc.);
 National decisions on land (e.g.
concessions to investments) better take
into account inter-state commitments on
water
(IV)
International/Global
 Disconnected land and water discourses,
theories and normative policy processes
 Cross-sectoral concerted normative
response to water and land ;
 Joint collaborative efforts to address land
and water challenges;
 Greater cooperation, experience and
perspectives sharing between global
alliances of social movements of land-
and water concerned actors.
(IV)
Interplay between
scales
• Disconnect between domains  International and inter-state
commitments better informed by
realities at lower levels;
 Land and water policy practices at lower
5. Coordinated governance at various scales (2/2)

16. • Context of resource scarcity and the increasing food
demand
• General agreement on the need for a paradigm shift:
water-food-energy nexus (WFE), water-energy-land nexus
(WEL)
• As seen as if IWRM had done its time
• Need for a more politically sensitive, coordinated
governance of land and water
→ opportunity to re-examine and use the full potential of
IWRM paradigm
→ Opportunity to operationalise land component in IWRM
6. Conclusion -- Coordinated governance of land
and water as opportunity to restore the relevance
of the IWRM paradigm

17. THANK YOU !