Marie-Charlotte Buisson

1. Unlocking the potential Improving water governance and community-based management in coastal BangladeshOutcome story Marie-Charlotte Buisson

2. The Ganges Basin Development Challenge • Collective desire to prevent the breaching of polders during natural disasters, but often the common interests end there • Conflicting interests;communities must prioritize water use • across different sectors: water for agriculture vs. water for pond fisheries • within the same sector: drainage vs irrigation, low land vs high land • Communities also frequently cope with prolonged periods of land submergence and drought • Inequity and unequal power dynamics present a challenge to achieving adequate representation of women and other marginalized members • Vulnerability to environmental change (sea level rise, increased salinity, changes in land use patterns, reduced river flows or sedimentation) further complicates these challenges

3. Water governance and community based management (G3) Objectives and research questions

4. Water governance and community based management (G3) Methodology and activities Conflict case study Students thesis Official consultations Officials field visits Literature reviews Household and WMO survey ? RESEARCH QUESTIONS ? Gender case study ? Community consultations ? ? Qualitative survey ? West Bengal case study Infrastructures mapping Experimental games Participatory maps

5. OUTPUTS – Selected publications • Dewan, C., Buisson, M.-C., Mukherji, A. 2014. The imposition of participation? The case of participatory water management in Coastal Bangladesh. Water Alternatives 7(2): 342-366. Tuong, T. P.; Humphreys, E.; Khan, Z. H.; Nelson, A.; Mondal, M.; Buisson, M.-C.; George, P. 2014. Messages from the Ganges Basin Development Challenge: Unlocking the Production Potential of the Polders of the Coastal Zone of Bangladesh through Water Management Investment and Reform. CPWF Research for Development Series, Paper 9. Colombo, Sri Lanka: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF).

6. OUTPUTS - Dissemination • Community consultation and validation workshops • arenas for discussion between different local stakeholders • Nov 2012, Nov 2013 | 250 participants • GBDC dissemination workshops • at the Planning Commission, LGED and donors, CGIAR Advisory Committee • Nov 2012, May 2014 • Dissemination meetings with officials and policy makers fromWARPO, BWDB, LGED, Blue Gold • Sept 2014

7. PARTNERSHIPS • Partners have been involved at different steps of the project • Design • Data collection • Analysis • Formulation of the recommendations • Dissemination Local Government Engineering Department Bangladesh Agricultural University Bangladesh Water Development Board GBDC projects led by IRRI (G2, G1), IWM (G4) and World Fish (G5) and their respective partners.

8. Achieved OUTCOMES • Various stakeholders better appreciate the complexities involved in polder governance, internalize the existence of conflicting interests and the requirement for a revised framework • Better understanding between the stakeholders on their conflicting interests but also on their different practices • All the stakeholders (community members, WMOs members, local government officials, local officials from implementing agencies) had open discussions and learned from each other • Local officials also realized that coordination was required and that they can play a role in that sense • Evidence • Appropriation of the research findings by the stakeholders • Materials from the validation workshops (report, pictures, transcripts)

9. Potential OUTCOMES – 1/2 • Government officials and elected representatives show interest in our research findings and recommendations and some preliminary progresses are made toward policy change • Recommendation on the importance of involving Local Government Institutions (LGI) in water management is much more recognized today than it was few years ago; example: Water Management Rules adopted in February 2014 specify the role of LGIs representatives in water management • WARPO commits to use the G3 recommendations in the discussions for revising the National Water Act and subsequent rules and guidelines • Evidence • Minutes from dissemination workshop • Water management rules, MoWR, February 2014 • Proceedings from meetings with officials and policy makers

10. Potential OUTCOMES – 2/2 • Donors and implementing agencies positively welcome our recommendations and some are ready to pilot those Blue Gold committed to be involved (through infrastructure development in 2015) aside with researchers to pilot the small-hydrological unit concept which emerged from G3 and G2 • Project recommendation on the shift from an inclusive to a targeted group approach to increase the role of excluded stakeholders in water management (women, landless, …) has been positively welcomed by various stakeholders(LGED, Dutch Embassy) • Evidence • Minutes from dissemination workshops • Project proposal for SHU involving Blue Gold, IRRI, IWM and IWMI

11. Lessons • Sustainability of the partnerships is essential; partnerships are powerful when both organizations win (not only financially) in working together and when they remain flexible to allow different level of contributions • Collaboration across several projects (GBDC-CPWF), centers and researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds brought an open-minded spirit and created new uptake potentialities. Ways forward Revitalizing the Ganges Coastal Zone: Turning Science into Policy and Practices – Conference – 21-23 October 2014 - Dhaka Build on the partnerships established for further projects Keep regular contacts with officials and policy makers to strengthen the uptake potentialities Follow the implementation of the recommendations and assess the impacts achieved

12. UNLOCKING THE POTENTIALImproving Water Governance and Community-Based Management in Coastal Bangladesh THANK YOU