Transforming participation in water governance: the multisectoral alliances of rural water committees and NGOs in Nicaragua

Romano, Sarah T.

doi:10.1080/07900627.2017.1363722

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Cities in Guanajuato have also tended to privilege agricultural uses over urban consumption, thus increasing pre-existing pressures on water wells within the urban and peri-urban areas [96,[102][103][104]. Farmers have traditionally had a lot of power over water allocation in Latin American jurisdictions, especially in Mexico [105], though Nicaragua is one example where these stakeholders are disenfranchised within urban water governance processes [106][107][108].…”

Section: Results and Discussion: San Miguel De Allende As A Site Of M...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing Urban Water Conflict through Watershed Councils—A Public Policy Analysis Approach and Critique

Pacheco-Vega

2020

Water

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Cities face substantial water governance challenges, even more so when their activities are water-intensive, as global tourism is. As the lower-most level of government, municipalities face important challenges when dealing with water stress. Designing robust urban water policy thus may require us to challenge currently popular modes of governance by river basin councils, as predicated by the integrated water resources management (IWRM) paradigm. In this paper, I conduct a public policy analysis of a case study of intra-urban water conflict in the Mexican city of San Miguel de Allende (SMA), an extremely popular tourist destination with substantive water scarcity challenges. I draw insights from an application of the Institutional Grammar Tool, IGT (as proposed by Ostrom and Crawford) on a series of textual datasets derived from ethnographic, qualitative longitudinal field research, document analysis, and elite interviews with stakeholders to explain the reasons underlying community concerns about urban water supply which have derived in conflict in San Miguel de Allende and increasingly manifested over the past few years (2017–2020). My analysis suggests that to tackle growing intra-urban antagonism derived from increasing water insecurity in San Miguel de Allende, a more localized, micro-watershed approach might be more fruitful than a traditional river basin council strategy.

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Section: Results and Discussion: San Miguel De Allende As A Site Of M...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing Urban Water Conflict through Watershed Councils—A Public Policy Analysis Approach and Critique

Pacheco-Vega

2020

Water

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“…Nicaragua's Potable Water and Sanitation Committees (Comités de Agua Potable y Saneamiento, hereafter CAPS) supplement the focus of rural cooperatives on agricultural entitlements with a specific focus on improving water access. Since the late 1970s, CAPS have been responsible for managing small-scale water infrastructure in communities typically < 500 households in rural and semi-rural regions of the country (Romano 2019). The General Water Law (Ley 620), passed in 2007 and updated by the Special Law for Potable Water and Sanitation Committees (Ley 722) in 2010, legally formalized the CAPS, establishing rights.…”

Section: Local Institutions For Food and Water Security In Nicaraguamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although CAPS leadership offices are open to all committee members in "good standing," several of Nicaragua's laws promote equal participation of women (and men) in elected office, and previous research suggests that consultants helping CAPS establish their bylaws often encouraged them to include a line about women's equal participation in leadership positions (Alaniz 2021). Once legally constituted, CAPS can collect fees from members, invest in new water systems, develop local policies on water management and use, and develop agreements with other institutions (Romano 2019).…”

Section: Local Institutions For Food and Water Security In Nicaraguamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We started this field research during a severe drought that affected northern Nicaragua from 2014-2016, and our expectation was that the drought would significantly exacerbate food and water insecurities in the study area. Drought would generally decrease the water availability and quality (Mosley 2015), diminishing stream flows and increasing household water insecurity, as most village water systems in northern Nicaragua's mountains rely on surface water (Romano 2019), and water quality often decreases with less flow. In these communities, smallholder farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture for their annual corn and bean harvests and for sustaining yields of key cash crops (e.g., coffee).…”

Section: Research Question and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Toward a feminist political ecology of household food and water security during drought in northern Nicaragua

Bacon¹,

Kelley²,

Stewart³

2022

E&S

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Few studies assess the relationship between food and water access, despite global concerns about people's inability to maintain access to both food and water. We conducted a mixed-methods comparative case study in northern Nicaragua, with smallholders from two neighboring communities that differed in water availability and institutional strength, using a feminist political ecology framework and food and water security definitions that focus on access, availability, use, and stability. We adopted a participatory approach that included: a sex-disaggregated survey in 2016; interviews, participant observation, and community-based water quality testing from 2014 to 2019; and analysis of a severe drought that occurred from 2014 to 2017. Our results suggest that uneven power relations, biophysical conditions, gender, and institutions shape food and water access, and indicate that households across both communities average 2 months of drinking water insecurity during the dry season followed by an average of 2.5 months of food insecurity early in the growing season. The average duration of lean food months was similar across communities and sex, but water insecurity lasted longer in the community that had weaker local institutions and less surface water availability. Ethnographic research helped to document uneven and gendered experiences of water access and to illustrate how they were also shaped by conflicts over water for irrigation vs. domestic uses and cross-scalar limitations in water and land governance. Although we found that gender and institutions were not strong predictors of several food and water insecurity indicators on their own, both factors influenced the terms of access, conflict, and cooperative governance needed to secure resources and well-being. Our study highlights the need for theory, methods, and field research that integrate the analysis of food and water security, and it contributes to developing a feminist political ecology approach that unifies this analysis with a focus on gender.

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“…However, these studies tend to focus on the subnational or national scale to analyze how water community organizations "scale-up." Some authors have included the transnational scale when studying water community organizations to understand their response to pressures from states with neoliberal reforms as seen in the creation of a national community irrigation network in Bolivia (Perreault 2005); the internationalization of the human right to water movement (de Gouvello andFournier 2002, Bakker 2007); the scaling-up of movements of resistance in the Andes (Boelens 2008); the resistance against water grabbing in payments for ecosystem services ; and the influence of NGOs and multisector alliances in the emergence and consolidation of intercommunity water networks in Ecuador and Nicaragua (Hoogesteger 2013, Romano 2019.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water community networks and the appropriation of neoliberal practices: social technology, depoliticization, and resistance

Dupuits¹

2019

E&S

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In the 1990s, various attempts to privatize water services in Latin America came from international financial institutions. Several social movements emerged to protest against privatization, especially from community and indigenous organizations collectively managing their water resources. Recent contestations are arising against extractivist states that aim to strengthen their control on strategic water resources for development purposes. Somewhat paradoxically, many water community networks have recently adopted an increasingly technical framing to be included in national decision-making processes and to be recognized as full-fledged actors in international arenas. In 2011, some of these networks created the Latin American Confederation of Community Organizations for Water Services and Sanitation (CLOCSAS). I analyzed the new strategies and frames mobilized by CLOCSAS that sought to break away from the legacy of antiprivatization movements. I studied how this rupture implies a process of professionalization and the appropriation of neoliberal practices and discourses. First, I presented the conceptual and theoretical background used to study the emergence of multiscale water community networks in Latin America. Second, I analyzed the strategies deployed by CLOCSAS, including the formalization of water community networks, the promotion of a new form of social technology, and the institutionalization of water community governance in the public sector. Finally, I discussed the ambiguities, ruptures, and tensions between water community governance and neoliberal practices.

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Transforming participation in water governance: the multisectoral alliances of rural water committees and NGOs in Nicaragua

Cited by 13 publications

References 24 publications

Governing Urban Water Conflict through Watershed Councils—A Public Policy Analysis Approach and Critique

Governing Urban Water Conflict through Watershed Councils—A Public Policy Analysis Approach and Critique

Toward a feminist political ecology of household food and water security during drought in northern Nicaragua

Water community networks and the appropriation of neoliberal practices: social technology, depoliticization, and resistance

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