Water Governance in OECD Countries: A Multilevel Approach addresses multilevel governance challenges in water policy implementation and identifies good practices for coordinating water policy across ministries, between levels of government, and across local actors at subnational level. Based on a methodological framework, it assesses the main “coordination gaps” in terms of policy-making, financing, information, accountability, objectives and capacity building, and provides a platform of existing governance mechanisms to bridge them. Based on an extensive survey on water governance the report provides a comprehensive institutional mapping of roles and responsibilities in water policy-making at national/subnational level in 17 OECD countries. It concludes on preliminary multilevel governance guidelines for integrated water policy.
Politicians and diplomats have for many years proclaimed a human right to water as a solution to the global water crisis, most recently in the 2010 UN General Assembly Resolution “The human right to water and sanitation”. To what extent, however, can a right to water legally and philosophically exist and what difference to international law and politics can it make? This question lies at the heart of this book. The book’s answer is to argue that a right to water exists under international law but in a more differentiated and multi-level manner than previously recognised. Rather than existing as a singular and comprehensive right, the right to water should be understood as a composite right of different layers, both deriving from separate rights to health, life and an adequate standard of living, and supported by an array of regional and national rights. The author also examines the right at a conceptual level. After disproving some of the theoretical objections to the category of socio-economic rights generally and the concept of a right to water more specifically, the manuscript develops an innovative approach towards the interplay of different rights to water among different legal orders. The book argues for an approach to human rights – including the right to water – as international minimum standards, using the right to water as a model case to demonstrate how multilevel human rights protection can function effectively. The book also addresses a crucial last question: how does one make an international right to water meaningful in practice? The manuscript identifies three crucial criteria in order to strengthen such a composite derived right in practice: independent monitoring; enforcement towards the private sector; and international realization. The author examines to what extent these criteria are currently adhered to, and suggests practical ways of how they could be better met in the future.
Collective Action is now recognized as central to addressing the water governance challenge of delivering sustainable development and global environmental benefits. This book examines concepts and practices of collective action that have emerged in recent decades globally. Building on a Foucauldian conception of power, it provides an overview of collective action challenges involved in the sustainable management and development of global freshwater resources through case studies from Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Latin America. The case studies link community-based management of water resources with national decision-making landscapes, transboundary water governance, and global policy discussion on sustainable development, justice and water security. Power and politics are placed at the centre of collective action and water governance discourse, while addressing three core questions: how is collective action shaped by existing power structures and relationships at different scales? What are the kinds of tools and approaches that various actors can take and adopt towards more deliberative processes for collective action? And what are the anticipated outcomes for development processes, the environment and the global resource base of achieving collective action across scales?
This report addresses multilevel governance challenges in water policy implementation and identifies good practices for coordinating water policy across ministries, between levels of government, and across local actors at subnational level.
Water is becoming one of the world's most crucial concerns. A third of the world's population has severe water shortage, while three quarters of the global population lives in deltas which run the risk of severe flooding. In addition, many more face problems of poor water quality. While it is apparent that drastic action should be taken, in reality, water problems are complex and not at all easy to resolve. There are many stakeholders involved - industries, local municipalities, farmers, the recreational sector, environmental organisations, and others - who all approach the problems and possible solutions differently. This requires delicate ways of governing multi-actor processes. This book approaches the concept of 'water management' from an interdisciplinary and non-technical, but governance orientation. It departs from the fragmented nature of water management, showing how these lack cooperation, joint responsibility and integration and instead argues that the capacity to connect to other domains, levels, scales, organizations and actors is of utmost importance. Connective capacity revolves around connecting arrangements (such as institutions), actors (for instance individuals) and approaches (such as instruments). These three carriers of connectedness can be applied to different focal points (the objects of fragmentation and integration in water management). The book distinguishes five different focal points: (1) government layers and levels; (2) sectors and domains; (3) time orientation of the long and the short term; (4) perceptions and actor frames; (5) public and private spheres. Each contributor pays attention to a specific combination of one focal point and one connective carrier. Bringing together case studies from countries including The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Romania, Sweden, Finland, Italy, India, Canada and the United States, the book focuses on the question of how to deal with the various sources of fragmentation in water governance by organizing meaningful connections and developing 'connective capacity'. In doing so, it provides useful scientific and practical insights into how 'connective capacity' in water governance can be enhanced.
Important policy problems rarely fit neatly within existing territorial boundaries. More difficult still, individual governments or government departments rarely enjoy the power, resources and governance structures required to respond effectively to policy challenges under their responsibility. These dilemmas impose the requirement to work with others from the public, private, non-governmental organisation (NGO) or community spheres, and across a range of administrative levels and sectors. But how? This book investigates the challenges—both conceptual and practical—of multi-level governance processes. It draws on a range of cases from Australian public policy, with comparisons to multi-level governance systems abroad, to understand factors behind the effective coordination and management of multi-level governance processes in different policy areas over the short and longer term. Issues such as accountability, politics and cultures of governance are investigated through policy areas including social, environmental and spatial planning policy. The authors of the volume are a range of academics and past public servants from different jurisdictions, which allows previously hidden stories and processes of multi-level governance in Australia across different periods of government to be revealed and analysed for the first time.
This republished Special Issue highlights recent and emergent concepts and approaches to water governance that re-centers the political in relation to water-related decision making, use, and management. To do so at once is to focus on diverse ontologies, meanings and values of water, and related contestations regarding its use, or its importance for livelihoods, identity, or place-making. Building on insights from science and technology studies, feminist, and postcolonial approaches, we engage broadly with the ways that water-related decision making is often depoliticized and evacuated of political content or meaning—and to what effect. Key themes that emerged from the contributions include the politics of water infrastructure and insecurity; participatory politics and multi-scalar governance dynamics; politics related to emergent technologies of water (bottled or packaged water, and water desalination); and Indigenous water governance.
The four decades long ideological-based insurgencies and conflict in the Kabul River Basin (KRB) have seriously hampered the relations and foreign policies of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Consequently, it restricts them to solve various bilateral issues including transboundary waters. This lack of cooperation over shared water resources is one of the barriers to achieve inclusive and sustainable development. Additionally, it has contributed to the prevailing anarchic situation where each country does what it wants. The absence of a formal water-sharing mechanism coupled with poor water management practices within both the riparian counties are resulting various flow and administration-related challenges. Moreover, these challenges are further exacerbated by regional changes in social, political, environmental and economic systems. The scholarly literature suggests that an analytical transboundary water governance framework is essential to address the challenges of water politicisation and securitisation, quality degradation and quantity reduction. Additionally, the literature rarely integrates (a) a multi-level approach, (b) an institutional approach (c) an inclusive development approach, or (d) accounts for the uses of different types of water and their varied ecosystem services for improved transboundary water governance. To enhance human wellbeing and achieve inclusive and sustainable development in the KRB this research indicates that it is essential to: (1) defrost frozen collaboration; (2) bypass border dispute; (3) use biodiversity and ecosystem services approach; (4) address existing and potential natural and anthropogenic challenges; (5) remove contradictions in the policy environment; (6) combat resource limits and dependence by promoting collaboration on long-term cost effective solutions; and (7) enhance knowledge and dialogue on inclusive development.
This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of multi-level water governance, developing a conceptual and analytical framework that captures the complexity of real water governance systems while also introducing different approaches to comparative analysis. Applications illustrate how the ostensibly conflicting goals of deriving general principles and of taking context-specific factors into account can be reconciled. Specific emphasis is given to governance reform, adaptive and transformative capacity and multi-level societal learning. The sustainable management of global water resources is one of the most pressing environmental challenges of the 21st century. Many problems and barriers to improvement can be attributed to failures in governance rather than the resource base itself. At the same time our understanding of complex water governance systems largely remains limited and fragmented. The book offers an invaluable resource for all researchers working on water governance topics and for practitioners dealing with water governance challenges alike.
This book synthesizes current knowledge and understanding of management and governance in the context of water resilience; advances theory through synthesis of research and experiences from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The book highlights the implications of theory and experience for innovation in practice and policy; and it explores frontiers and future research. The book further addresses the need for a consolidated, interdisciplinary approach to the theoretical advances and practical implications of water resilience for academics, resource managers, aid organizations, policy makers and citizens.
