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Investing in Water Governance
By Wouter Lincklaen Arriens* |
An independent panel that reviewed the implementation of the policy in 2005 reported that the glass was both half full and half empty. The panel supported the policy and urged ADB to increase its water investments significantly and do better in implementation, including helping clients to improve water governance.
As the region reviews its progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, government leaders are increasingly recognizing the need to increase water investments, which are key to alleviating poverty, improving livelihoods, and reducing vulnerability to disasters that can push communities back into poverty.
Higher investments are indeed needed on a priority basis for extending and rehabilitating infrastructure to deliver water services and to manage water resources in river basins. ADB has announced a doubling of its own water investments under the Water Financing Program 2006-2010. Clients and partners are being encouraged to join the program and work together in achieving its targeted outcomes.
The challenge lies in ensuring that the renewed commitment to infrastructure financing is supported by work to improve water governance. Are water reform initiatives and capacity development now receiving higher priority from finance ministers, or are they still by and large treated as a luxury to be paid for from grant or concessional funds? The real-life answer is that decision makers like to see proof of results on the ground before agreeing to increase budgets for water governance.This is where ADB’s program of pilot and demonstration activities (PDA) has been helping out. The program started in 2002 with a pragmatic view of the opportunities and constraints for ADB’s clients to pursue innovative investments and reforms. Small grants are provided, normally in the amount of $50,000 per project, and this ensures a fast turnaround of proposals and rapid achievement of results, which should be replicable in the country or region. Interestingly, many of the PDAs are focusing on innovations in water governance.
Three PDAs that were completed recently have demonstrated both the cost-effectiveness of the program and a strong interest by ADB’s clients in water governance. In Thailand, the department of water resources demonstrated how stakeholder awareness and participation are key in getting a new river basin organization to work. In Viet Nam, the people’s committee of Quang Nam province piloted the formation of a river basin organization to ensure that planned hydropower developments in the basin can be pursued in a framework of integrated water resources management. And in Nantai Island in the rapidly-expanding Fuzhou City in the People’s Republic of China, city managers and local community leaders joined hands to clean up the polluted waterways.
In each case, the PDA champions demonstrated three important achievements: decentralizing water management, changing mindsets, and achieving results. 
In Thailand’s Bang Pakong river basin, the central government agency gave more decision space to the newly-established river basin committee and supported it in starting a process of basin dialogue with stakeholders in four provinces, aiming to reduce the perceived “gap between government and the people.” The dialogue helped to create a better atmosphere between the river basin committee and local stakeholders, and clarified the mandate of the river basin committee.
The PDA champions also demonstrated that changing mindsets is both necessary and possible. The formation of the river basin committee in Quang Nam province in Viet Nam became a source of empowerment for the provincial leadership in adopting integrated water resources management as they involved both government agencies as well as local community representatives.
In Thailand’s Bang Pakong river basin committee, government members gave their support to the chair of the committee, a private entrepreneur with a deep interest in and commitment to sustainable development in the basin. The committee is the only one among 29 country-wide with a chair from the private sector. In Nantai Island, the city government skillfully mobilized local community leaders to turn the general public’s dissatisfaction with water and solid waste pollution into committed local action to improve the situation.
More than anything, the PDA champions were focused on achieving results. The Bang Pakong basin dialogue led to a deeper understanding of stakeholders for water allocation approaches, with a decision to pilot and improve the model in a priority sub-basin. The Vu Gia-Thu Bon river basin committee was both proactive and decisive as a forum for introducing IWRM with participation of the basin stakeholders. And in Nantai Island, the PDA champions made specific recommendations for a community-driven approach to cleaning up the waterways under the larger Fuzhou Environmental Improvement Project.
The new approaches for water governance that were demonstrated in these PDAs have a good chance of being replicated and emulated before long, thereby meeting the program’s objectives. The PDA champions in the Bang Pakong river basin, Quang Nam province, and Fuzhou city have shown that water governance is a priority to make investments work. The triple actions of taking on responsibility for a new organization, changing mindsets to mobilize action, and focusing on results are good recipes to start.
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