Challenges of local water governance: the extent, nature and intensity of local water-related conflict and cooperation

What is it about?

Together with researchers from Bolivia, Nicaragua, Mali, Zambia and Vietnam, DIIS researchers have mapped the extent, the nature and the intensity of conflict and cooperation about water in one district in each of the five countries. The results of this research are published in an article in the journal Water Policy. The researchers estimate that 6.000 water-related events took place in the period between 1997 and 2007 in the five districts combined. The events were almost equally distributed between conflictive and cooperative events. The article characterises the events and discusses the implications for local water governance. Conflictive and cooperative events occur in situations such as when the local wealthy farmer deviates drinking water and uses it for irrigating his fields; when the establishment of a new well causes women and men to disagree on how to use the water; or when the water in the local stream where people living in the community wash themselves every day gets contaminated from pesticide residues when farm labourers fill their knapsack sprayers.

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Why is it important?

The extent, the complexity and the fact that such events only rarely come to public knowledge are at the core of the challenges with which local water governance is confronted. Despite the fact that the majority of the water-related events are local and often only affect people within the community where the event occurs, it is such local events which combined affect most people and imply that a large part of the populations in countries like Bolivia, Nicaragua, Mali, Zambia and Vietnam do not have access to sufficient and sufficiently clean water to live a decent life. The authorities which have the responsibility to intervene to ensure the citizens’ right to water only rarely have the necessary economic, political, legal or professional resources to comply with their task. International development cooperation intended to support sustainable and pro-poor water governance could provide a valuable contribution to closing this gap between available and needed resources to address and mediate in local water-related conflict and cooperation.

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