Governance and Water Management in Asia: What do we need to Learn? Stephen Tyler, International Development Research Center. Water resource issues are increasingly perceived to constrain development, to contribute to impoverishment and to threaten the sustainability of economic activity and of ecological integrity. The reliability of water resource availability, in terms of both quality and quantity, is deteriorating and water resource parameters are changing rapidly in many parts of Asia. But the challenge in managing water resources is mainly one of governance. Many of the issues around water have to do with who decides, what factors are considered and by what process decisions are made. What do we need to learn about governance, decision-making and water resource management? In October 2003 the International Development Research Centre convened a meeting of regional experts in New Delhi to discuss the research agenda for water resource management in Asia. This paper reports on those discussions. There are several thematic issues that cut across all research efforts in this field. While interdisciplinary work is critical to sound research and policy on water issues, there continues to be a gap between natural and social sciences and researchers are typically not rewarded for venturing outside their own discipline. Throughout the water sector, decision-making is plagued by inadequate data and lack of access to the data that is available. There was a sense that a broader range of tools for policy implementation is needed and that orthodox water management policy tools lack sensitivity to diverse political context. Given the difficult issues involved, policy change will require building capacity and robust, well-documented pilot successes. There are also some key topics of learning that deserve closer attention to inform development decision-making. In many cases in developing countries, water rights are often poorly defined, or informal. Furthermore, differences in water resource rights may be systematically biased by gender, ethnicity or caste. There is a question as to what is the appropriate scale to adopt in addressing water management issues. We need to seek opportunities to elaborate and test innovative governance processes in the water sector and to examine success and failures of decentralization and privatization. As with other areas of applied research for development, there is also a need for researchers to have a better understanding of the processes of decision-making and governance to better focus and target their research questions. As water resource managers seek to ensure the representation of different interests and values in the decision-making process, they need to recognize the challenges. “Social auditors” play an important role, but it is a role, which has many weaknesses in public contestation of water issues. An iterative adaptive learning model was suggested to enable action yet also respond both to accumulated lessons, and to the dynamic context of water management. 115 116 Forces Behind Accepting / Rejecting Water Pricing Raouf F. Khouzam, Ph.D.1 The world at large recognizes the adverse impact of water scarcity on global development. Water scarcity is the result of the expanding gap between the ever-rising demand for water and the water endowment. On the one hand, the rise in demand is due to the drastic increase in the world irrigated area from about 350 million acres in 1961 to 670 million acres in the year 2000 (FAOSTAT 2004), economic growth, industrial expansion, and energy water consumption. On the other hand, the water endowment was used to be determined by natural climate variations. But, the “intensive anthropogenic change of the hydrologic cycle of rivers and lakes” makes water resources also affected by man’s activities (UNESCO 2002). Sincere efforts are being exerted to ameliorate the impact of water deficit. Scores of international and regional meetings are being held (Text Box 1), new organizations are coming into existence, a huge flow of literature is being articulated, and tens of projects are being carried out worldwide. Text Box 1: A list of main water-related events took place over the last decades. In 1960, the UN Coordination and Advisory Council set up an inter-agency sub-committee for freshwater resources. 1977, the first international water conference was held in Mar de Plata, Argentina where the International Water Resource Board was established. 1980, the International Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade started. The year 1992 witnessed several events. The second international water conference was held in Dublin where the principles on sustainable water management were set out; followed by the Earth Summit in Rio which supported the Dublin Principles; then, the Helsinki Convention set restrictions on contamination of transboundary water courses. In 1994, the Ministerial Conference on Drinking Water and Environmental Sanitation was held. In 1995, the World Water Council was established. In 1996, the International Conference on Water Policy held in Cranfield University, UK. 1997, the UN General Assembly identified the management of drinking water, sanitation and freshwater as critical issues. In the same year, the First World Water Forum was held in Marrakech and the World Water Vision and Framework for Action Process were initiated. The year 1998 was also full of water-related events: The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Expert Group met at Harare, Zimbabwe to discuss the strategic approaches to freshwater management, the International Conference on Water and Sustainable Development was held in Paris, the Sixth UN Commission on Sustainable Development assessed strategic approaches to freshwater management, the EU forum was held in Strasbourg to look at water as a source of citizenship and regional peace, the World Commission on Water was initiated as an umbrella organization for the World Water Council and Global Water Partnership, and the Stockholm Water Symposium was held. In December 2001, the International Conference on Freshwater was held in Bonn. The year 2002 witnessed the 2nd World Water Forum in The Hague and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. In 2003, the 3rd World Water Forum is held in Kyoto. Unfortunately, international efforts failed to reach a unified approach concerning how to deal with water scarcity. For instance, a report on the outcome of the World Water Council (WWC) forum in the Hague (attended by a broad diversity of stakeholders) states: “The second forum infused the whole spectrum of participants with the notion that water is everybody’s business and not the exclusive business 1Independent researcher. Mailing address: P.O. Box 150, Gezira, Cairo 11568, Egypt. Mobile phone: 002-010-526 0776 email: [email protected] 117 of governments and water professionals. Much less agreement was obtained on the model that should replace this government monopoly.” (Guerquin et al. 2003; p. xxiii) Despite the lack of complete agreement, a majority of professionals believes that the problem lies in the illogic of the water management model followed in many parts of the world. Developing countries believe that water is a social resource. Hence, water should: (a) be exclusively managed by a government institution to assure its availability, and (b) be supplied free of charge or heavily subsidized. This school of management is termed the “social paradigm”. The social paradigm seems as if it were designed to boost its use and consumption!! On the contrary, when water deficit is expanding every day worldwide, the target of water resource management should be to induce water rationalization and conservation. To achieve such target, water has to be managed as an economic resource (Guerquin et al. 2003, Morris 1996, Lundqvist and Clausen 1994). In that, water should have a price that reflects its opportunity cost and, in addition, a suitable market scheme to allow trading water among users within the one sector and among sectors (termed the “economic paradigm”). This paper looks into the factors affecting the decision to shift from the social to the economic paradigm. Section 1 argues that the economic paradigm will evolve along with the development of the whole society. Section 2 discusses the argument behind the social paradigm and the response to it. Section 3 points out that covering for water scarcity by importing virtual water from the international market is not a reliable solution. Section 4 concludes that adopting the economic paradigm is strongly recommended to counteract water scarcity. Yet, in the light of the success and failure stories of many countries, adaptation should be carefully designed. 1. Water Pricing is a Matter of Evolution Professor Tony Allan of the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London identifies five paradigms of water management that employed over the past 150 years (Allan 2000). The first paradigm belongs to the pre-modern communities. Of the main features of that era are small population, limited technology, poor organizational capacity and central allocation of water resources. The second paradigm started evolving during the 1950s and the 1960s. Industrial modernity, hydraulic mission, development of organizational capacity, expanding engineering capabilities, and progress in water sciences are the deriving forces behind the birth of that paradigm. The third paradigm is the ‘green reflexive’ paradigm emerged as a result of the surge in environmental awareness. A