Missing Links in Global Water Governance: a Processes-Oriented Analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Over the past decade, the policy and scholarly communities have increasingly recognized the need for governance of water-related issues at the global level. There has been major progress in the achievement of international goals related to the provision of basic water and some progress on sanitation services. However, the water challenge is much broader than securing supply. Doubts have been raised about the effectiveness of some of the existing governance processes, in the face of trends such as the unsustainable use of water resources, the increasing pressure imposed by climate change, or the implications of population growth for water use in food and energy production. Conflicts between different water uses and users are increasing, and the state of the aquatic environment is further declining. Inequity in access to basic water and sanitation services is still an issue. We argue that missing links in the trajectories of policy development are one major reason for the relative ineffectiveness of global water governance. To identify these critical links, a framework is used to examine how core governance processes are performed and linked. Special attention is given to the role of leadership, representativeness, legitimacy, and comprehensiveness, which we take to be critical characteristics of the processes that underpin effective trajectories of policy development and implementation. The relevance of the identified categories is illustrated with examples from three important policy arenas in global water governance: the effort to address access to water and sanitation, currently through the Millennium Development Goals; the controversy over large dams; and the links between climate change and water resources management. Exploratory analyses of successes and failures in each domain are used to identify implications and propose improvements for more effective and legitimate action.

Exploring Institutional Transformations to Address High-End Climate Change in Iberia

“…Our results showed that pathways in all scenarios stressed the need to support integrated water management [26,27] in a way that enhances climate resilience and builds on collaborative and transboundary governance institutions, policies and regulations [28]. This is supported by other pathways that promote shifts towards sustainable lifestyles, including socially responsible attitudes towards water, and strong environmental policies for other sectors, especially agriculture, infrastructure modernization and technology innovation.…”

“…Attaining such knowledge may require the construction of multi-scalar social action networks-rather than just data bases or information pools-in order to enhance the actual resilience and anticipatory capacities of social-ecological systems [6,30,31]. This is considered to favor institutional learning and more adaptive or, in our context, more transformative responses to fast environmental change [13,27,[32][33][34].…”

Water security: a popular but contested concept

“…Can such pluralism facilitate integration of different perspectives and support a more holistic approach or will it rather encourage increasing fragmentation? Pluralism at the level of discourse may be beneficial in engaging diverse perspectives and different parties in the process of policy framing (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2013a). However, discourse and legal pluralism can both enhance and confuse governance.…”

Unlocking the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” of Corporate Water Stewardship in South Africa—Exploring Corporate Power and Legitimacy of Engagement in Water Management and Governance

“…The topics were seen as politically too difficult for the already challenging multi-stakeholder engagement. Even though in principle corporate water stewardship fits well with the ideals of global [12] and South African policies [37, 39,40] emphasizing multi-actor and polycentric water management and governance as stated previously, in practice corporate water stewardship was still found to be a discourse of a small group of actors and individuals in South Africa. The epistemic community involved in the stewardship agenda setting and discourse including the corporate head offices, DWA, donors, consultants, international NGOs and stewardship organizations, were by some informants worried to be generally detached first, from the field level operations of the corporations as referred to in Section 3.2.1 above, and second, from the on the ground reality of the majority of South Africans.…”

“…The first component is source-based legitimacy, with sub-components of expertise and resources, here those of corporations to tackle water issues; institutional tradition, here the alignment of the new forms of corporate engagement with the prevailing institutional frameworks, respecting the democratic mandates, rights and responsibilities, and the track record of corporate engagement on water; and fit with the dominant discourses of society, here the fit of corporate engagement on water with e.g., the ideals of multi-actor water management and governance [12] and human right to water [36,37].…”