Three Streams to a Thriving Future
Rural Water, Urban Water, Basin Water
By Abby Tan
Consultant Writer, ADB
If football was played the way most water resources are managed, the game would be chaos. Water governance could learn a thing or two from football.
In football, the game isn’t contained to just one corner of the field or controlled by one player for very long. No, the game splices in any given direction, at uneven paces, and with great unpredictability. What holds the game together are players who know their role, know the potential impact of their move, and the rules governing the game.
Water is like football in that they are both—by design—not easy to contain, yet need rules to thrive. Water cuts across diverse landscapes, is managed by dozens of different government ministries, and used by multiple—often rival—users. It is hard to call water a “sector” (like football is called a “game”) because its management and use often lack the rules needed to give it efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, water resources have been depleted, polluted, and unfairly distributed—often leaving the poor on the sidelines with no services and the water resources in dismal conditions.
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ADOPTING A HOLISTIC SOLUTION
How long can this go on? Rules are exactly what water in Asia and the Pacific need. The principles of “Integrated Water Resource Management” (IWRM) are the rules—the approach—that leading global and regional institutions have been advocating for years. The problem is that everyone in Asia—or even the majority of governments—is not playing by them, and as a result is faced with rivers either running too dry, flooded, or polluted to sustain their economic growth.
IWRM offers governments a solution. It is all about coordination and thinking holistically to meet the demands from different sectors and between urban and rural areas. ADB’s Water for All Policy advocates implementing IWRM in basins specifically, as they are the foundation for sustainable use by the various urban and rural users. Yet, to know how to manage basins, one must know the water situation in rural and urban areas.
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THREE STREAMS INTERTWINING
A proposed $50 million ADF loan for the Small and Medium Towns Development would provide water supply and sanitation investments in Binh Thuan, Dac Nong, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan, and Phu Yen provinces. The objectives are to expand and rehabilitate facilities, support decentralized management of water supply and sanitation, and sustain the delivery of services through institutional and policy reforms, capacity building, and adequate cost recovery.
ADB has also been in discussion with state-owned Hanoi Water Company No.1 regarding the $60 million Phase1 of the Red River water supply project supply for the capital, and a non-revenue water project of about $25 million to lower the 42% leakage rate in Hanoi.
Internally, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has applied a new lens for studying the current status and direction of its water operations, and the management of water resources in the region. Projects are identified as either rural, urban, or basin in nature, and ADB project staff have begun working together in small groups to identify the specific issues, trends, barriers and possible solutions of rural, urban and basin water. The idea behind this three-pronged approach is that an integrated plan for water can be assembled only when the mechanics of its parts have been understood. Only then, can Asia’s water resources and urban and rural economies truly have a chance of thriving.
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Rural Water
Focuses on investments to improve health and livelihoods in rural communities, including those for water supply and sanitation, and irrigation and drainage |
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Urban Water
Concentrates on sustaining economic growth in cities through investments in water supply, sanitation and wastewater management, and environmental improvement |
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Basin Water
Promotes IWRM, covering healthy rivers through investments in infrastructure and management of multifunctional water regulation and hydropower facilities, flood management, watershed and wetlands conservation |
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