Water

Results of ADB Water Week 2004 Water for the Poor: Setting the Rules and Finding the Money Change Agenda Changing the nature of water project Investing more in non-structural interventions Managing water is not just building infrastructure, it's also about building capacity

Results of ADB Water Week 2004 Change Agenda Changing selection criteria Changing incentives and advocacy Changing regulation Changing the rules to reward efficiency Changing the focus of lending Changing the nature of water project Changing water financing partners

Most governments and many development agencies still focus their water investments on building new infrastructure. Big infrastructure projects appeal to politicians, they provide opportunity for corruption in the procurement process, and they produce tangible results that justify lending for the donor. Regrettably, well designed but poorly implemented or managed infrastructure projects often don't help the poor. More investment is needed in capacity building of sector organizations and civil society, and in nonstructural interventions that improve water security for the poor.

Water assets need to be managed efficiently by good managers with skilled personnel, sound organization, efficient systems, focused processes, good revenue streams and an enabling legal environment if the assets are to produce a desired sustainable service.

The evidence is clear that infrastructure projects alone constantly fail to deliver the expected results to the intended beneficiaries. Non-structural interventions combined with infrastructure will do so if designed and implemented well. However, though development agencies are prepared to offer loan funds for the soft component of water reforms, governments are reluctant to borrow for them. This may be because they do not add anything tangible to the asset side of the Government balance sheet or because the Government may have doubts about the economic and financial returns or because the perception is that capacity building generally fails because of inept and overpaid expatriate consultants.

One such example is flood control in People's Republic of China. There, nearly 50% of the population and more than 600 cities are subject to the threat of floods. Most of these cities are protected by hydraulic engineering works such as dikes, reservoirs, gates and levees. However, evidence suggests that structural works without nonstructural measures are not effective. What was needed was investment in forecasting and planning methods, risk analysis, water and flood management techniques, disaster preparedness, damage recovery and disaster relief. Forecasting used with historical information enabled much more effective management of water flows to anticipate the onset of weather patterns likely to result in floods.

• ADB and other donors, as part of their knowledge management strategy, must inform governments on the inter dependencies between structural and non-structural investments and the economic returns from packaging them together.

• Governments must learn from past investments that investing only in structural assets does not deliver sustainable benefits and adjust their investment policies accordingly.

• Civil society should voice more strongly their concerns about "asset only" solutions and advocate a complete package producing the performance levels designed for the system.

Flood damage rehabilitation currently constitutes about 80% of ADB's lending under its emergency assistance facility.

• ADB will continue to help the DMCs reduce economic losses from floods and rapidly restore economic infrastructure and social services after such disasters.

• ADB will seek to increase its understanding of the effects of periodic El Niņo and La Niņa events on climatic patters, and share its knowledge and experience with the DMCs. This will help the DMCs to anticipate natural calamities, and minimize economic and social damage.

• ADB will adopt a proactive approach to reduce the severe economic and social costs of natural disasters by promoting the use of combined structural and nonstructural approaches to flood protection, including flood-risk insurance.