Catalog

Water: A Crisis of Governance

As competition for water intensifies, commitment and political will are needed to ensure fair access to water

By Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange

WATER MATTERS HRH the Prince of Orange (left) and RH Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development, United Kingdom, listen to the water concerns of a South African student

Background

Water is crucial to development. As the world population tripled in the 20th century, the use of renewable water resources has grown sixfold.

The substantial investments in the development of water resources in Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and Asia have made major contributions to food security, electricity production, and economic growth in general.

These investments have also succeeded in satisfying the basic needs of much of the world’s population. This water development, however, has not always been sustainable, and many are convinced that there is a world water crisis.

Today’s world water crisis is defined by insufficient access to safe drinking water for over a billion people, and inadequate basic sanitation for half the world’s population.

Population growth, the increase in gross national product in most countries, and progressing industrialization combine to create a demand for water in the urban areas of developing countries, which will continue to increase substantially in the coming decades.

At the same time, lakes and rivers, wetlands, and marine waters provide the vast majority of environmental goods and services, including fish. Many of these services depend on the integrity of aquatic ecosystems.

This integrity has been affected by the decline in surface area of these ecosystems, widely deteriorating water quality, and reduced quantities of water that are needed to sustain these ecosystems.

For environmental reasons, large-scale development of river and groundwater resources is less acceptable today than before. It is also less cost-effective than it was from 1960 to 1990, when the majority of the world’s 45,000 large dams were built.

Set against this is the fact that the lack of access to water is expected to be one of the key constraints to achieving food security for all in the coming decades.

We will see continued pressure to develop the world’s remaining water resources—a challenge that will have to be met in-novatively and sustainably.

Top

Targeting Agricultural Trade

The most important area of global governance with a substantial potential impact on the water sector is the system of international trade.

Globally, agriculture uses as much as 70% of all renewable water resources that are diverted for human use. The proportion is as high as 80–90% in developing countries.

Worldwide trade in agricultural products — also referred to as trade in virtual water—has the potential to counteract water scarcity locally.

It is evident that the food self-sufficiency targets maintained by many countries are closely linked with the demand for water for agricultural use.

A fair and reliable system of international trade in agricultural products that would enable countries to relax national food self-sufficiency targets would have a major impact on the demand for water.

In addition, the $1 billion a day agriculture subsidies in OECD countries have a major impact on the export of agricultural products from developing countries—and thereby on their demand for water.

Changes in the agricultural trade regimes and subsidies in both the developed and the developing world are therefore going to have a very important impact on the demand for water.

Basins Stimulate Cooperation

The effort to develop a much-needed institutional framework for international water governance has not only been met with resistance but has also been relatively unsuccessful.

The UN Convention on the Non-Navigational Use of International Waters took several decades to draft and then attracted insufficient ratifications to enter into force. There are, on the other hand, many bilateral and international agreements concerning the use and development of water resources in international basins.

These agreements have successfully allowed countries to share water benefits, even in situations where bilateral relations have been less than optimal.

There is likely to be intense competition for and conflict over water among uses and users within countries at the local level. But in the international arena, water has proven to be a good catalyst for cooperation between nations.

Investments by the international community to facilitate and support efforts by riparian countries to deal with international water sharing and management through basin-wide initiatives—such as the Nile Basin Initiative—are highly cost-effective and should be expanded.

At the 2nd World Water Forum it was recognized that the water crisis is mainly a crisis of governance. Integrated water resources management (IWRM) has gradually become an accepted framework for “effective water governance.”

One important aspect of IWRM is river basin and aquifer management. It is now recognized that the basin has become the appropriate scale to assess and manage water resources.

These developments point in the right direction. Successful implementation of IWRM, however, will require full commitment and political will.

Find out how ADB and its partners address the problem on water in the Asia-Pacific region

Visit our Water site

Email this to a friend