Managing Water: Challenges and Opportunities in IWRM Implementation

1. Timothy Moss, IRS, Erkner Managing water beyond IWRM – from paradigm to pragmatism Presentation at workshop “Water Governance – European and Chinese Perspectives”, University of Macau, 5 Sept. 2011

2. Structure • IWRM: development of a global paradigm • Behind the consensus: ambiguities and tensions of IWRM • From theory to practice: the implementation gap • Ways forward: some research challenges

3. IWRM: development of a global paradigm Between 1977 and late 1990s, • “IWRM evolved from an expression of frustration on the part of water planners and managers to become the dominant language in which the challenge of global water governance is framed.” (Conca 2006: 125) Emergence of IWRM as global paradigm: • International conferences (Mar del Plata, New Delhi, Dublin, Johannesburg) • Pressure from community of water professionals • Institutionalisation: World Water Council, Global Water Partnership, 1996

4. IWRM: general definitions 3 groups of definitions of IWRM (Huppert 2005): • Joint management of surface and groundwater, across multiple levels • Inter-sectoral integration between water use and use of one other resource • Integrated approach to use of multiple resources • IWRM is a process that „promotes co-ordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximise economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital systems“ (GWP, 2000: 22) 3 key features of IWRM (Conca 2006): • Water management to address social, economic and ecological uses • Water management as cross-sectoral task • Water management as multi-level task Cf. World Water Council’s World Water Vision (2000): • Decisions on land also affect water, and vice versa • Decisions on our economic and social future affect hydrology and ecosystems • Decisions at international, national and local level are interrelated

5. IWRM: the appeal • IWRM today the discursive framework of international water policy because of “intuitive reasonableness, an appeal to technical authority, and an all-encompassing character of […] great flexibility:” (Conca 2006: 126-7) • Broad remit of IWRM (Butterworth et al 2010: 69): • to improve efficiency in water use (economic rationale), • to promote equity in access to water (social or developmental rationale) • to achieve sustainability (environmental rationale) But what is IWRM? • A scientific concept? • A complex construction of a problem? • A discursive framework? • A policy agenda? • A set of management guidelines?

6. Behind the consensus: ambiguities and tensions of IWRM Molle (2008): IWRM a “Nirvana concept” • Valuable as a policy-framing discourse, but in practice ambiguous, complex and contradictory (Conca 2006) Conflicts at 2nd World Water Forum at The Hague, 2000, over dams, water privatisation, water rights & transnational cooperation revealed deeper fault-lines in IWRM community: • Public vs. private • Market vs. non-market instruments • Economic good vs. basic right • River basin management vs. state agreements • Local community engagement vs. global water politics • Expert vs. lay knowledge • IWRM is marked by a “dialectic between two philosophical norms; one, the rational analytic model [...]; and two, the utilitarian or free market model [...]” (Priscoli 1996: 30)

7. Some criticisms of IWRM • Concept too vague • Overplays win-win situations (“integration”), downplays trade-offs • Based on normative claims rather than sound science • Process-oriented, but lacking measurable targets for goals • Designed primarily for developed country contexts • Tension between integrative approach around river basins and participatory approach around local communities • River basins not always most suitable units for water management • Parallel structures of decision-making: river basin and political territories

8. Criticism of “depoliticised” IWRM IWRM is about water control (Mollinga 2008): • Technical/physical; organisational/managerial; socio-economic/regulatory Political nature of IWRM generally seen as problem: • 2000-2002: Period of ‘discourse closure’ around depoliticised notion of IWRM (Allan 2003; Mollinga 2008) Recent shift in attitudes: • May 2008: CSD-16 conceded that “water issues are not only technical and institutional issues: they have also intrinsic political content which has to be explicitly considered in order to be able to solve effective difficulties linked to competition among stakeholders and interests” (cited in Chéné 2009: 3) • Creates opening for acknowledging politics as reality – and as an opportunity for change (Butterworth et al 2010)

9. From theory to practice: the implementation gap Definitions of IWRM impressive, but is it really working? • Biswas (2004): its “impact to improve water management has at best been marginal” • World Bank study (Blomquist et al 2005): “Despite improvements, significant water resource management problems remain in all the cases we studied” • GWP 2005 survey (2006): only 20 out of 95 countries acknowledged implementing some IWRM principles (only applied to policies, laws and plans, not implementation in practice)

10. Implementation problems (generic) • Gap between policy-making at national/international levels and implementation on local level • IWRM applied often as standard ‘package’ of reforms regardless of context • Inadequate consideration given to building on existing structures • Little consideration of informal norms and customs of local water management • IWRM in developing countries can appear externally imposed • Stakeholder participation in IWRM often weak in practice

11. Implementation problems (specific to policy package) • Enabling environment (policies, legal frameworks, funding) • policies exploited by various stakeholders, policies not always domain of government, legislative framework often inadequate, contradictions to concurrent decentralisation of water management, financing generally inadequate • Institutional roles (structures, capacity) • stakeholders not readily identified und integrated; institutions fail to manage power asymmetries and dynamic behaviour of stakeholders; corruption and fraudulent behaviour • Management instruments (GWP ‘toolbox’) • notion of perfect spatial fit around river basins problematic; accountability often superficial and poorly measured; lack of coordination in practice; results of IWRM not always equitable – esp. in developing countries

12. Beyond the polarised discourse (Saravanan et al 2009) • Original IWRM approach: “how to integrate” • Based on trust in consensus-building, stakeholder participation • Founded on Habermas, building on collection action school (Ostrom), social learning approach (Pahl-Wostl), … • Critics of IWRM: “how integration cannot be achieved” • Based on critical appraisal of power dynamics, contestation, complexities and contextuality of water management • Generally fail to provide constructive alternatives • Context-sensitive IWRM: “how integration actually does take place” • Based on learning from context-specific experiences of continuous process of institutional adaptation • Calls for “lighter, more pragmatic and context-adapted approaches, strategies and entry points” (Butterworth et al 2010: 68)

13. Ways forward: some research challenges • Prioritising practical, ‘real-world’ solutions • Studying forms of adapted, ‘interpreted’ IWRM rather than comprehensive, ‘idealised’ IWRM (Lankford et al 2005) • Analysing experiences (negative and positive) of institutional capacity development – with systematic, multi-case comparisons (Bernauer 2002) • Identifying effective ‘entry points’: e.g. issues close to needs of people (water services, irrigation etc.) (Butterworth et al 2010) • Orienting target-setting from linear models of cause and effect to “real-world systems” (UNESCO 2009) NB: This ‘light’ version of IWRM – building on existing knowledge, structures and procedures, rather than creating new ‘ideal’ ones – is characteristic of German path of implementing EU Water Framework Directive

14. Offering guidance for adaptive management • “Adaptive management can more generally be defined as a systematic process for continually improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of implemented management strategies.” (Pahl-Wostl and Sendzimir 2005: 7) • Studying processes of adaptation of existing institutions and practices • Developing sound conceptual understanding of dynamics and uncertainties involved in IWRM – as conceptual counter-balance to overly practical approaches to IWRM • Learning from ongoing debate on transitions and transitions management in science and technology studies (Kemp, Geels)

15. Getting out of the ‘water box’ • UN World Water Development Report 3 (UNESCO 2009): • Most decisions affecting water are made beyond the water sector, yet IWRM confined mostly to the water sector • Studying demographic, social and economic drivers of water resource management and ways of coping with them: • E.g. climate change, urbanisation, demographic change, globalised trade & commerce, deindustrialisation, liberalisation/privatisation • Analysing multiple functions of water, their value in specific time/space contexts & equitable means of allocating costs • Devising policy mixes and interconnected instruments from complementary policy fields • Developing partnerships between those responsible for the economy-wide benefits of water and those responsible for managing water (UNESCO 2009)

16. Embracing the politics of IWRM • Issues of legitimacy, accountability, equity & transparency increasingly addressed in research and practice of IWRM • Studying four domains of water politics (Mollinga 2008): • Everyday politics • Politics of state policy • Hydropolitics • Global water politics • Studying politics of scale / rescaling: • actors working across these domains, across administrative hierarchies and across hydrological scales to advance their interests (Swyngedouw 2010) • Forms and degrees of collaboration between operational, organisational and policy levels of IWRM (Margerum 2007)

17. Understanding and supporting actors in context • Transcending stereotypical assumptions of actor group perceptions and behaviour >>> differentiated analyses of actors in real-world situations • Analysing actor responses to political reform ‘from above’ • Studying emergence of new roles and new actors in IWRM • Exploring different roles of men and women in specific contexts • Providing water managers of tomorrow with necessary education, training and skills for IWRM as an interactive, negotiated process

18. Improving institutions and governance for water-relevant public goods • Going beyond descriptive representations of organisational structures and policy frameworks • Conducting in-depth institutional analyses, • covering policy styles, governance forms, funding streams, regulatory logics etc. • exploring ‘fit/misfit’ between water institutions and other, water-relevant institutions (e.g. instruments) • Conceptualising water institutions in terms of socio-ecological research on public goods (Ostrom 1990, 2007; SES): • designing institutions to reflect (diverse) attributes of specific public goods: groundwater, surface water, water infrastructures, etc • Refining knowledge on problems of fit, interplay & scale and suitable governance arrangements (Young 2005)

19. Further information: • www.irs-net.de • mosst@irs-net.de