WATER, CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE

Lilia O. Ramos
Approtech Asia and lSW

Deborah Moore
Environmental Defense Fund, CAPE 2000 and ISW

This issue paper draws its underpinnings from a variety of exchanges between partner organizations of the International Secretariat for Water (ISW) nurtured by meetings and common endeavours with public agencies, voluntary and private sectors.

In particular, it echoes the Call To Action presented by NGOs at the Ministerial Conference on Drinking Water and Environmental Sanitation organized by the Government of the Netherlands in Noordwijk, March 22-23 1994. It was discussed at, and revised further to the International NGO workshop on Strategies for Sustainable and Equitable Development and Financing organized in Manila, Philippines, May 1994 by the ISW and Approtech Asia.

Freshwater, being considered either as a common good, a public service or a commodity raises the whole range of sustainability issues. A starting point of our thinking is to recognize, according to the Montreal Charter on Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation (1990) that "access to such a resource is, above all, a political issue" or, said otherwise, that everyone has a right to drinking water and sanitation, given that it is an essential condition of survival.

The responsability to provide safe, clean water for everyone lies with governments and the international community involving the various constituencies of Civil Society in concrete actions and new financing mechanisms; such partnerships are built on complementarity of intervention, transparent and accountable rules of the game, holistic and people-centered approaches. Yet, some figures reveal a daunting picture for current and future generations: one person out of three in the world today suffers from water shortage. In less than twenty years, continents like Africa are expected to experience dramatic shortage. Eighty percent of the major diseases of the Third World are due to the poor quality of the water. The South-North gap on access to safe water in 1990 reveals an average disparity of 68 to 100, with least developed countries being at 47 (UNDP). Conflicts between countries for control of this scarce resource will become more frequent and violent since the major catchment areas are borderless. While water management can be a source of conflict and social exclusion, it is equally often the cement that joins communities around watersheds, lakes, rivers or wells.

Sustainability of water resources requires sustainable communities. Yet communities representing Civil Society rooted at different levels of social belonging, living and work place must be involved in a democratic and participatory process of defining sustainability from a local perspective; this process must occur within a framework both of "thinking globally and acting locally", and of "thinking long term and acting now". This fundamental paradox of democratic sustainability poses a dilemma for a national sustainability strategy. How can we encourage democratic participation within a sustainability framework that respects global as well as local water biophysical limits, improves inter- and intra-generational social equity, and develops an economy which generates individual and community livelihoods rather than one that simply grows ?

The following issue paper presents interesting inputs to reconciling water issues with Civil Societies. To a considerable extent, the water crisis is not only a political crisis but also a creativity crisis. The only way that we can successfully meet the myriad of challenges necessary to develop sustainable communities is through encouraging social innovation, local initiative, adaptation of appropriate technologies. Involvement of Civil Society in such strategies therefore, is itself a sustainability strategy. Local decisions which contribute to global sustainability decisions to conserve water and make a sustainable and equitable use of these resources benefit the entire planet. However, bottom-up initiatives must be accompanied by top-down leadership if plans are going to be implemented and activities sustained at a larger scale: only governments have the regulatory and taxing powers to secure the transition to sustainability.

Governments and the international community should introduce and implement - individually and collectively Ä the regulations and incentives to enable and empower our communities to act for water sustainability. International agreements, standards, incentives, and investments are needed to ensure that we all work together to meet our common goals of safe, clean water for everyone on Earth, the " water planet ".

Let us thank all those who contributed to this document: the Government of the Netherlands which supported financially the Philippines Seminar; participants to such seminar and the Approtech Asia team who welcomed them so nicely and finally, our colleagues of ISW Board and staff.

(as the number of pages is limited, only one paragraph of the document is presented)

Lessons of the international Decade of Water Supply and Sanitation (from the NGO document presented at the Ministerial Conference on Water Ä The Hague Ä march l 994).

Water problems have not been high on the political agenda, and past solutions have used a sectoral approach that ignored the priorities and sustainable know-how of women and local communities. and the needs of water-dependent ecosystems;

The vast majority of investments for water projects have relied on expensive, centralized, and resource-intensive technologies, particularly for irrigation and hydropower, leaving inadequate financing available for drinking water, sanitation, and wastewater treatment at local, national, and international levels;

There has been a lack of appropriate, accessible, and affordable water supply, sanitation7 and wastewater treatment technologies;

Environmental components of water management, such as protecting rivers, lakes, wetlands, watersheds, groundwater, forests, fisheries. coastal resources and coral reefs, have been largely neglected in the process of "development". Virtually all "development" in the form of logging, mining, agriculture, large-scale dam construction and channelization, and industrialization affects water resources; and

Population growth, together with the over-exploitation of water resources in some sectors (like tourism, irrigation, and hydropower), has outstripped the gains made in water supplies and sanitation in many areas, particularly in Africa.

Water and Security of Civil Society

Unequitable allocation and conflicting uses

availability of water

use and consumption patterns

Effects on development and health of populations

water quality: pollution, disease, mortality

Protection of ecosystems, climate and the global environment.

 

Three dimensional levels, or better said three circles of cohabitation or dwelling domains, shall be recognized, if water decisions are to be embedded in the realm of civil society. Though they do not correspond with administrative divisions, administrators should take them into account.

These three main distinct dimensional scales are

the domestic domain (family; household);

the community level of which the well, the washing place, the public fountain or the street hydrant was previously the center;

the basin

Though decisional style should remain embedded in the concrete level of govemance (commune, parish; municipality; State), it can grossly be stated that the prescriptive character of decisions (to decide about what should be) is inversely proportionate to their scale of application, while their proscriptive character (to agree about what should not) is directly proportionate to it.

Therefore, further to the International Conference on Water and Environment (1992), water policies must be "scaled". They must respect communities of water-sharers; they must recognize watersheds (be basin consistent).

One of the first tasks of a scaled water policy shall be to carry out a survey of water sources and discharges in every "circle of cohabitation" or dwelling scale.

Then:

a picture of those concentric "water matrices" shall be drawn: in everyone of them, the points of contact between the cultural and the natural cycles should be declared zones of common concern, that is, in right, commons;

natural and cultural watersheds should be recognized and the basin-consistency of water policies enhanced.

 

Any attempt to regenerate the community's relation to water must aim at enlarging the basis of citizen action and citizen control on water sources. In other words, communities and citizens must regain some direct forms of access and control on the water now withdrawn from their sources for agricultural and industrial purposes.

Water has therefore the juridical nature of a civil right, or, to use the terminology of old common law, a civic liberty of access. Civic rights of that kind do not pertain to the state nor to private parties. On the contrary, they are part of the fundamental possession rights of any community of residents living in the same basin. Rights to water are therefore the specific rights of "water-sharer" here. The more their water is respected, the more inclined community will be to limit their needs according to the local water qualities and quantities.

Rescaling water management must necessarily begin at the domestic level. That which starts in my household is of interest for the community's household: for instance, saving water at home can curb municipal costs.

In that respect, the proposals of Cesar Anorve and Pierre Lehmann, the Tucson "Casa del Agua" (see Box l), and the installation of domestic water meters by the dwellers of a Peruvian squatter settlement are particularly illustrative of the ways in which "retooling my household" can avoid the squandering of water both at home and at the municipal level (J. Robert).

The Casa del Agua in Tucson is a public demonstration project about easy-to-implement water conservation practices both at the domestic and the municipal scales.

The main suggestions for households are:

use up-to-date water-conserving fixtures,

use water meters to check daily consumption;

recycle grey water to the garden or to the flush toilet;

prefer dry landscaping (xeriscape) to the conventional grass lawns;

build a cistern and collect rainwater.

The following suggestions are given to municipalities:

prefer xeriscape;

concede fiscal advantages to citizens who:

practice xeriscaping

have built a cistern to store rainwater for the garden;

have installed special grey water plumbing systems with slow sand filters to recycle the water from the family's sinks, tubs, showers and washing machines into the flush toilets or the garden cistern.

A typical household equipped with the water saving fixtures exhibited at the Casa del Agua consumes just one third of the amount of water used in a conventionally outfined single-family household of the same size. Either the government or water companies could finance the installation costs of these fixtures and/or deduce the amount from monthly bills over a period of time.

If cities succeed in cutting back consumption by such means, they will be able to delay huge investments to expand their systems, since laying new pipes and building darns and treatment plants costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

From: Jean Robert: Water is a commons, HIC, 1994

The second circle involves decisions taken at the scale of the neighbourhood, district or municipality. It should be noted that several traditions of decision-making are often intertwining; for instance, in Mexico, the commune inherited from colonial times still exists, a heritage often mingled with old-Mexican traditions.

As new sanitary regulations are making the price of domestic water boom, alternatives to conventional treatment plants should b~ considered, especially in poor countries.

One of the most promising alternatives to overly expensive and energy-intensive sanitary "high technology" is the root zone process developed in (:Germany by Dr. Reinhold Kickuth, a professor in ecological chemistry at the University of Kassel. The root zone process is a natural treatment procedure in which the soil "does the job". More precisely speaking, a root zone treatment plant uses the capacity of reeds phragmitis communis) to:

oxygenate the soil thanks to the spongy core of their systems (aerenchyma) and

maintain in the root zone (rhizosphere) a network of fine canals through which waste water will flow horizontally and be treated by that process.

 

Such a root zone treatment plant allows the formation of a humid biotope that, besides treating the waters of a rural, suburban or even urban community, attracts batrachians and birds and has favourable climatic effects.

The first root zone plant ever built is the ecological project "Humid Biotope Orthfresen" near Liebenburg in tile Goslar region. It has operated with minimal maintenance costs since 1974.

This solution is not only satisfactory from an ecological as well as a hygienic point of view; it is also much less expensive that a conventional treatment plant. A good example is the small plant in Havighorster Moor near Hamburg-Bergedorf that treats water seeping from a dumping ground. A conventional plant was estimated at US $3,300,000. The root zone plant which was built instead cost only US $530,000.

From : Jean Robert (op.cit.)

The third circle we will call the basin. A subtle watershed runs through geography, separating one basin from the other, eventually making its inhabitants into co-dwellers of this valley. The perception of changes of cultural mood between "here" and "over there" is no less subtle than the identification of geographic watersheds in a shallow landscape.

Historically, riparians coming to terms about water rights tended to define what nobody should do rather that positive norms applying to everybody.

Today, a sound water policy at the basin level should define a "proscriptive ceiling" under the shield of which riparians should be locally autonomous.

In the light of these considerations, it is possible to recognize some guidelines for policies of sustainable use of water (J. Robert, op.cit.):

increase the capacity and intensity of natural self-depuration;

protect the gratuitousness of the legitimate and traditional uses of water extending it to uses of small economic weight but great cultural and energetic significance;

reconfirm the possession rights of communities of residents and riparians over water sources and ask the state and local powers to be the shield and the guarantee together of these rights;

curb the production of sewage water by limiting the mingling of its ingredients. Favor the local captation of water and its local absorption by the soil;

tax in a conspicuous manner and with progressive tariffs all heavy water consumers, be they private or public, so that squandering become very expensive for the squanderer;

reconstruct in every basin the matrix of natural self-depuration, avoiding the separation of the management of water which is paid for (because it runs in canals, sewers, etc.) from the other elements essential to the cycle: forest, mountain slopes, watersheds, hydrographic nets, etc;

fix for every basin a maximum ceiling, that is, ration water according to the local capacity of self-depuration and the correct use of the mountain slopes and wells;

promote the forms of depuration technologies that involve people and make them responsible, improving their hydric culture;

and last but not least, let great amounts of clean water run unpiped over the territory.

 

Governments' traditional suspicious regarding civil society organizations are gradually being replaced by a recognition of the role of civil society institutions as agents of change and partners in development. Systems and structures of governance are being questioned and this restructuring of governance systems creates unprecedented opportunities for better collaborative arrangements between the State, the private sector and the non profit sector at the local, national and global level. On the other hand, the exploration of opportunities for cooperative action does not imply that citizens should renounce their right and duty to question and oppose corporations and States when ever their behaviour proves detrimental to the common good.

The challenge to bring in all water stakeholders in the governance structure calls for democratization of market mechanisms and governance structures; it is also to expand to the global arena the struggle for democracy and human development that has so far been carried out basically at the local and national levels.

Such citizen action will involve the following forms:

The recognition that national and international civil society organizations can play a fourfold role in the implementation of such approaches, built on their comparative advantage over State and private sector;

catalyst and supporting agent of local initiatives;

intermediary capable to forge alliances and networks in order to facilitate exchanges and to capitalize experiences between groups, and expand such approaches;

mediator between State and local communities, and between government and multilateral agencies to promote a reform of public intervention and interests of disenfranchised groups;

educator and communicator of civil society towards the sound, sustainable and equitable use of water.

 

The strengthening of regional coalitions, sectoral networks, international alliances to address water and other specific issues: movements such as women, Amnesty International in the defense of prisoners of conscience or Médecins Sans Frontières in favor of civilian victims of armed conflicts have broken new ground in affirming the right of the world citizen community to overcome claims of state sovereignty when gender-based discrimination, human lives and people's basic rights are at risk.

The challenge of such alliances and coalitions is to build common grounds and horizontal cooperation between stakeholders as different as peasant and trade union movements, indigenous peoples, consumer associations and others.

The global networking and advocacy efforts of civil society organizations to influence the agenda and outcome of major U.N. and interministerial conferences have produced some landmark events.

This global networking has proved its value not only in educating the public about the issues at stake but also in asserting citizen right of sharing responsibility with states for the governance of the planet and of calling for transparency and accountability from international financing institutions and corporations. Examples of such networking include the Asian Development Bank NGO lobby and the UNCED coordinating committees.

The creation of ongoing mechanisms for consultation, cross-sectoral interaction and eventually, joint policy initiatives and conflict resolution with institutions of civil society. Such mechanisms, for instance in the GEF governance structure, might be created within the UN System, multilateral financial institutions, regional development banks and global business associations.

Dialogue and cooperation between institutions of civil society particularly to foster democratic transitions and develop a democratic culture in a multinational and multicultural context amidst multiple instances of identity. For instance, through exchange programs dealing with minorities, social exclusion, NGOs.

The creation of intermediary civil society structures capable to mediate between central administration of regional unions or trade agreements and local people. In particular, the application of the principle of subsidiarity emphasizes growingly the need for, and the advantages of, individual responsibility, self-help, and actions by citizens' organizations.

Such intermediary structures may be shaped along sectoral issues (ex. peasant unions), or a cross-sectoral regional basis (ex. the European Council for Voluntary Organizations), or on the basis of a regional service group (ex. Third World Network or the European Citizen Action Service).

The definition of public policy evaluation methods in order for the various outside stakeholders jointly to ask questions on, and assess the meaning and relevance of. government actions in areas directly relevant to citizens (housing; land use; water...)

These evaluation methods might involve civil society organizations in several working groups aiming to define guidelines (cahier des charges) for implementation agencies. Such guidelines are less articulated around means and tools than on performance targets. Such targets result from a bottom up approach in order to device general principles, standards and values of governance drawn from field experience; they are implemented from a top down perspective, with regular assessment of their respect.

Thus. this approach of active subsidiarity links together citizen networks sharing their experience, ongoing evaluation of public policies and articulation of the local-global perspective.

No sustainable civil society organizations and lasting social changes without building a collective imagination.

This memory built on a shared field experience and vision will strengthen collective capacities of citizens to evolve a common society's project.

The capitalization of these experiences may be articulated along the following lines: networking emphasizing dissemination and sharing of various experiences, processes and mutual learning (ex. Habitat International Coalition); legitimizing new practices and approaches by providing a voice to their promoters and influencing the training of future leaders; multiplying direct exchanges between citizens and communities on common issues (ex. Healthy City project); facilitating access of civil society organizations to data, stories and services documenting such accumulated knowledge (ex. Fondation pour le Progrès de l'Homme); capacity-building of civil society institutions seeking to enhance the unity, strength, perseverance and economic independence of local organizations as well as develop and maintain participatory structures within such organizations.

In a global and multicultural world, civil society organizations are growingly invited to foster intercultural dialogue among civil society actors and in the State-society relationship. Such dialogue will enhance mutual understanding and trust between the various components of society through: exchanges welcoming interbreeding; sharing of various forms of knowledge; making the voices of the "silent" heard; highlighting grassroots communication and conflict resolution practices; involvement in building peace and non-violent conflict resolution; making explicit the relationship between culture dynamics and development; recommending public policies in the field of cultural diversity, social integration and peace building.

 

Guidelines for investing in the water sector are a useful tool for governments, IFI's, multilateral and bilateral development agencies for design purposes and sustainability policies. They will include:

a water basin approach recognizing limits, scale and the water and soil matrix;

a commitment to universal coverage;

a water code of rights, service standards, consumption norms, fees, monitoring and enforcement, according to the scale of decision (community, basin);

decision-making processes ensuring public participation, transparency and accountability;

water pricing systems built on (i) the involvement and capacity to pay of users and communities, (ii) incremental pricing for water withdrawal;

a capacity for organizations of Civil Society (i) to initiate water management programs with financial support of public agencies, (ii) to be actively involved in pre-feasibility studies of such agencies;

an emphasis on least-cost planning, preventive approaches, and improved use of existing water supplies through water conservation;

the introduction of environmental and social impact assessment as a tool for ensuring the highest international standards in foreign direct investments and in aid projects in the water sector, including long-term sustainability of water resources and cumulative impacts of decisions. large-scale water project studies include alternatives such as small-scale options and water and energy conservation;

a significant capacity building component for organizations of Civil Society designed in each water management program;

a reliance on community-based management, including sustainable traditional and indigenous water management systems;

public access to water resources monitoring data, water sources and points of withdrawal and discharge, project documents, legal and financial information related to water programs;

involvement of women at all levels of project design, management, implementation, and decision-making;

allocation of adequate water supplies and water quality to protect and maintain water-dependent ecosystems, including rivers, lakes, wetlands, groundwater, costal zones, and coral reefs; and

sustainability indicators to assess progress on the implementation of such guidelines.