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Water Champion: Sukontha Aekaraj
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Each sub-basin has its own particular challenges depending on the space and stakeholders involved. But the common ones are also wide-ranging—from the deteriorating water ecosystem that directly affects the people's livelihood, to the lack of water supply for domestic use, to repeated floods, and polluted waters. Conflicts among water users constantly arise because of these challenges.
People participation is key to the operation of the Committee. Coordinators are identified within each sub-basin, and they provide the bridge that allows the government and communities to design and implement appropriate solutions.
At the grassroot level, the Committee challenges the people to find solutions to the issues. At the regional level, the Committee submits the river basin's projects for funding by the government or external sources. This process still needs to iron out some chinks but at the very least, the flow of funds from the central level to the river basin has started.
The Committee's mandate was confusing at the start. Thailand's river basin committees are essentially coordinating bodies, not operations entities. The members who thought that they could directly solve the basin's problems got frustrated when they realized that they had neither the authority nor the resources to do so. It took a while before the Committee grew into its role as orchestrator of programs or activities implemented by different agencies.
Another barrier was the different, often opposing, perspectives of committee members. The Committee is composed of local administrative body representatives, water users, local NGOs, government officials, and private sector delegates. Not only do their knowledge and attitudes towards the problems and potential solutions vary, but they also sometimes distrust each other's interests and goals.
A chairperson who hails from the private sector—a very unusual situation among Thailand's basin committees—was also not well accepted by Committee members from the government sector. Add to this the fact that representatives from water user groups or communities, while armed with the knowledge on the basin's problems and possible solutions, are often not articulate enough to air their views.The Committee is still very young, though, so such challenges are to be expected. What is important is that the Committee has already started making progress in terms of reducing conflicts and balancing the needs of the different water users.
The members may have different backgrounds and perspectives, but compromising is very intrinsic to Thai culture. Beyond that, the Committee ensures that issues to be decided by the members are backed up by solid data generated from the government agencies and the people.
The Committee chair, Mr. Chamroon Suaydee, is a restaurant owner and serves as president of the Prachinburi Tourist Club. He was elected chairperson of the Committee in 2003, two years after the BPRBC was first established.
Since the government sector representatives initially didn’t accept his leadership, they often missed Committee meetings. But the chair has good relationships with various groups engaged in natural resources and environment conservation, plus he is genuinely interested in involving the grassroots in making decisions for the basin. Using these strengths, the chair initiated dialogues on the specific challenges and core stakeholders of the Bang Pakong river basin using past research and actual experiences of Committee members. The results were accepted by the government agencies operating at the basin, and the Committee now ensures that the activities of these agencies in response to the challenges are synchronized.
The fact that the Committee gets the government sector, civil society, and communities to work together on a common project is already a big achievement. I must say, however, that this is a very painstaking process that involves difficult changes in mindsets, behaviors, and trust levels, and entails trial and error efforts. The Bang Pakong Dialogue helped this process along by introducing many exercises that required collaborative efforts from the members, often leading to concrete actions that resolve a current issue in one of the sub-basins.
Another promising achievement is the Committee's preparations to undertake water allocation as specified in Thailand's draft water law. For years, the Committee hasn't been able to do this because of inadequate infrastructure to control water flow in the river, and lack of coordination among the different agencies involved. But recent years have given the Committee some experience in terms of granting water use permits to industries, and the Bang Pakong Dialogue has offered various insights on the intricacies of water allocation.
The Bang Pakong Dialogue helps bridge the gap between the government and the people, and creates an environment of working together through consultations and common directions. I think this is a good start for doing integrated water resources management. Now in Thailand, there are plans to learn from the experience and replicate it in the Northeast river basins and one of the river basins in the Central region.
I think it's important to find a champion —whether an individual or agency—who will catalyze actions for the basin. In the case of Bang Pakong, it was BPRBC chair Chamroon from the private sector who galvanized the Committee into action.
It is also important to build the capacity of the RBC members to undertake Committee functions, especially conflict-riddled tasks such as water allocation. Continuous research on river basin management should also improve the RBO's performance.
The policy on water resources management and RBO mandates should also be clear. And linkages between the RBO and the national level must be specified, particularly in terms of planning, orchestrating action, and flow of funds.
Finally, behaviors and mindsets are important as they directly affect the decisions of the RBO members. Changes or compromises must be introduced to enable the Committee to make and implement a decision.
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Ms. Sukontha Aekaraj is the Director of the Foreign Relations Division in Thailand's Department of Water Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.