Local water governance in the context of current water reforms
On the sixth and last seminar in the 2008 Poverty and Environment seminar series, Rutgerd Boelens shared his insights, particularly gained through working in the Andean region, on local water governance and local water rights in the context of the wave of water reforms that currently sweeps over much of the world.
Through Rutgerd Boelens’ presentation entitled Water reforms and the analytical dimensions of water rights conflicts. Andean countries’ cultural politics and water struggles and the subsequent discussion, the following points emerged: - Water issues are highly political. Often their political importance go far beyond issues strictly relating to water access and governance and they involve issues such as identity, territorial rights and political authority;
- Despite the many attempts to develop general water policy and legal frameworks, water-related issues are often dealt with also in many other policy and legal bodies. Often such different policies and legal frameworks are mutually contradictory. Such ambiguities tend to create a room for maneuver for interested parties who seek to support their specific claims – what tend to be referred to as options for forum shopping. While these rooms for maneuver constitute important institutional platforms for fostering and stimulating change, it is important to recognize that it is not only indigenous groups and poor communities who go ‘forum shopping’; also powerful interest groups and corporate interests seek to benefit from such policy and legal ambiguities;
- In some parts of the world, such as in many parts of the Andes, poor farmers and indigenous people have developed strong local institutional capacity for water governance. Despite their strength, such local water governance regimes may turn out to be weak if confronted with sudden and major changes, whether caused by e.g. changing climatic conditions or the emergence of new powerful water users. Recognizing that it is both undesirable and impossible to shield off local communities from their surroundings, what would be the principles which should guide policy, legal and administrative interventions which would work in support of local water governance rather than undermining it?
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