Governance and policy

We helped St Petersburg’s water and wastewater utility (vodokanal) introduce corporate planning and a new approach to sustainable financial management – now we’re supporting a similar programme for vodokanals throughout the Russian Federation

Strengthening capacity to make real progress

At a time when water – and its impact on livelihoods, health and economic progress – is an ever pressing issue on the world stage, the ability of governments, municipalities, rural communities, private enterprise and civil society to embrace and demonstrate good governance is fundamental to making much-needed progress.

But what exactly is governance? The United Nations Development Programme says “Water governance refers to the range of political, social, economic and administrative systems that are in place to regulate the development and management of water resources and provision of water services at different levels of society.” The Asian Development Bank defines four elements of governance – accountability, participation, predictability and transparency. At the second World Water Forum in the Hague in 2000, ministers viewed good governance as being water resource management involving public interest and stakeholder participation. The Bonn Conference on International Freshwater in 2001 took a macro approach, adding institutional reform, integrated water resources management, equitable access and effective legal and regulatory frameworks to the three elements it initially associated with governance viz public participation, transparency and information availability. This thinking was consolidated at the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 where governance was understood to encompass “sound environmental, social and economic policies, democratic institutions responsive to the needs of the people, the rule of law, anti-corruption measures, gender equality and an enabling environment for investment.”

So how have we helped our customers to advance good governance? We have a long history of strengthening institutions though project implementation units, training programmes and a wide range of capacity development programmes. But to maximise their effectiveness institutions need a solid framework to work within and sound legislation to underpin their activities. And we have helped to make valuable progress here: China now has a new water law passed in 2002 – during its preparation we provided international best practice advice to the Chinese government. This has provided a strong platform for the major work we are now doing to support stronger water sector capacity development and governance in China. It also builds on successful design and implementation programmes we helped run to strengthen the institutions responsible for water resources management in both Uganda and Malawi.

We are strong believers in promoting management systems that foster and facilitate ownership and responsibility where they belong. Thus our recent work on transboundary water management in seven countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States had a strong theme of building on existing capabilities and strengths, promoting cross-border dialogue and constructive exchange of views and engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders.

Engagement with stakeholders – in this case farmers – was a strong lever in influencing the Nepalese government’s irrigation policy. Building on years of involvement in Nepal’s irrigation infrastructure development we were able to identify and then secure funding for three years of action-oriented research on water users’ associations – ensuring participation of irrigation water users and strengthening the accountability of water managers. Now complete, with proven results on the ground, this work has been widely disseminated in Nepal and beyond.

The process of decentralising government in many countries has brought increasing emphasis on enabling municipalities – particularly small ones – to develop their own infrastructure improvement capability. Quite often this involves accessing loan, donor or even private sector funding. Municipalities cannot actively engage in this process without understanding the project cycle, the project preparation process and the requirements of the supporting financial institutions. From an earlier base in supporting training programmes for Romanian municipalities seeking financial assistance for environmental infrastructure, we are now engaged in the pilot phases of a wider programme aimed at enabling collective project development by groups of small and medium sized Romanian towns.

As a founder partner in the UK’s Partnership for Environmental Co-operation in Europe (PECE), we’re helping champion co-operation between the public and private sectors and civil society. Together with an enterprising Russian partner we have just started a small PECE project in southern Russia.