The river navigating urbanisation: From forest extraction to the new capital city development in East Kalimantan

Vandy Yoga Swara
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Department of Social Development and Welfare, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; v.y.swara@uu.nl

Kei Otsuki
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; k.otsuki@uu.nl

Michelle Kooy
Department of Water Governance, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education Delft, The Netherlands; m.kooy@un-ihe.org

Femke van Noorloos
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; h.j.vanNoorloos@uu.nl

ABSTRACT: This article analyses the historical trajectory of landscape transformation in Sepaku Subdistrict, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, in order to clarify the extensive impacts of Indonesia’s capital relocation project, officially framed as a 'forest city'. To do this, we specifically focus on the relationship between the river and urbanisation. Theoretically, we draw on the political ecology of urbanisation, which generally focuses on uneven spatial development, and we focus empirically on the historical transformation of the river. Based on seven months of fieldwork (2022-2023), including semi-structured interviews, document analyses, and participant observation, we detail how two moments of state intervention have shaped the relationship between the river and urbanisation. The first moment involves the territorialisation of Sepaku as a productive forest area in the 1960s, transforming natural forests into industrial forests and resettlement zones through extensive transmigrant flows. The planned urbanisation marks the second moment, aimed at transforming Sepaku into a new, sustainable, and inclusive 'forest city'. We argue that the current condition of the river and the city has been iteratively shaped by two moments of socio-spatial and socio-natural transformation. In order to move away from these extractive legacies, further planning for the new capital city should consider this relationship and incorporate the river into its vision of sustainable and inclusive urbanisation.

KEYWORDS: Urbanisation, river, forest extraction, forest city, Indonesia’s new capital

Fluid legalities: Human-fish relations and water governance in Uzbekistan’s Zarafshan River Basin

Frishta Qaderi
Stanford Law School, Stanford, CA, USA; fqaderi@stanford.edu

ABSTRACT: This article explores water governance in Uzbekistan’s Zarafshan River Basin through a socio-legal analysis of human-fish relations. Building on scholarship that conceptualises fish as vessels embodying the biochemical, ideological, and economic forces of riverscapes, this article follows their movements through the domestic and international regimes that govern water, revealing how law, custom, and informal exchange shape everyday life along the river. Ethnographic research illuminates a post-Soviet landscape marked by legal pluralism: While international conventions introduced after the USSR’s collapse largely reinforced Soviet-era governance systems, decades of institutional decay – compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and mounting food insecurity – have opened new spaces for local agency. Humans and fish have formed more-than-human assemblages to navigate this turbulent socio-political, environmental, and economic terrain. Uzbek citizens leverage their relationships with fish to reinterpret and contest water governance, asserting agency beyond formal law, while fish depend on human interventions for survival. This article overall introduces fish as a medium for tracing how legality and life flow through Central Asia’s fluid landscapes.

KEYWORDS: Water governance, human-fish relations, socio-legal studies, Uzbekistan, Aral Sea

Enhancing resilience or exacerbating inequity? Revisiting irrigation investments in India

Pooja Prasad
School of Public Policy, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, India; and Department of Land and Water Management, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands; p_pooja@iitd.ac.in

 ABSTRACT: There is an increasing emphasis in India on building climate resilience through public investments in irrigation. Maharashtra’s Project on Climate Resilient Agriculture is a first such state implementation. Although resilience is a systems concept, the project targets individual farm-level investments. Our aim is to evaluate how these investments reshape water access amongst all farmers and how they impact resilience. In our study area in Jalna district, we evaluate the proposed interventions by combining field data with a modelling approach. Two indices are developed to indicate resilience: Irrigation Risk Index and Lock-in Index. We find that though the project increases the volume of water harvested, farmers are incentivized to use most of it through agricultural intensification with no buffer to deal with shocks. Despite an apparent focus on the resilience, the implementation prioritises increasing productivity of the irrigators over addressing vulnerability of rainfed agriculture. Moreover, the promotion of multiyear orchards creates a lock-in and reduces the adaptive capacity of irrigators. At the same time, due to the common-pool-resource property of water, less is available for the supplemental irrigation needs of other farmers. We conclude that the programme not only reduces resilience but also exacerbates inequity in water access. The research contributes to debates on investments for productive versus supplemental irrigation in rainfed areas. It also highlights the need for incorporating an equity lens when designing for resilience.

KEYWORDS: Climate resilience, agriculture, equity, supplemental irrigation, Maharashtra, PoCRA, India

Ecology and equity in rights to land and water: A study in south-eastern Palakkad in Kerala

Jyothi Krishnan
Independent Researcher, Thrissur, Kerala, South India; jyothikr07@gmail.com
Abey George
Kerala Institute of Local Administration, Thrissur, India; abeygeorgek@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This article explores the impact of the existing property rights regime over land and water on the sustainable and equitable management and use of these resources, in the context of changing irrigation practices in a paddy-growing area in the south-eastern part of the Palakkad district in Kerala, India. Since land rights determine rights to water in the area, the article discusses the changing rights regime over land, primarily after the implementation of land reforms in 1970. It shows how the implementation of land reforms and nationalization of private forests have paid little attention to the ecological context in which redistribution was taking place. As a result, while an agricultural-cum- forested landscape was divided into privately owned and government owned parcels, the ecological relationships between these different land use categories were ignored. In the same vein, land and water were treated as separate entities, with redistribution of land rights overlooking the distribution of water rights. The compartmentalized view of resources coupled with the consolidation of the private property regime has resulted in a situation where landowners exploit the resource without any consideration for its ecological characteristics and inter-resource linkages. The failure to view land and water in integration has precipitated inequitable access and unsustainable use of water. In addition, the availability of external water supplies and the introduction of energised pumping facilitate the enclosure of water within privately owned land parcels. The article concludes that a re-envisioning of rights to resources within the concerned ecological context is necessary if sustainable and equitable resource use and management are to be achieved.

Viewpoint - Butterflies vs. hydropower: Reflections on large dams in contemporary Africa

Henry Shirazu Alhassan
School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; h.alhassan@uea.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: The current acute needs for improved water resources and energy management in the contemporary development of Africa has renewed the interest in large dams in recent times, especially in the energy sector, because of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), concern about climate change, the increase in crude oil prices and alternative sources of funding for large dams. So, the rethink about large dams as an energy source in the face of increasing costs of crude oil and climate change is also based on finding cheaper and renewable sources of electricity. However, the renewable credentials of large dams, and their compatibility with sustainable development, are disputed. Using the Akosombo dam and the Bui dam project - both in Ghana - as case studies, this paper analyses the potential and significance of large dams within the ambit of Africa'€™s contemporary development. The paper argues that despite criticisms of large dams and the promotion of alternatives, large dams are still very important to Africa'€™s development as they are technologies with well known positive and negative socio-economic and environmental impacts which could be mitigated. The alternatives to large dams, in contrast, have relatively unknown long-term socio-economic and environmental impacts. In addition, there is scepticism among local people and other stakeholders about the alternatives to large hydropower dams because of the impression that some western-backed non-governmental organisations (NGOs), some northern countries, and some multilateral and bilateral institutions are intentionally seeking to undermine significant development in Ghana and other African countries.

Organising water: The hidden role of intermediary work

Timothy Moss
Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning, Erkner, Germany. mosst@irs-net.de
Will Medd
Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, UK. w.medd@lancaster.ac.uk
Simon Guy
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. simon.guy@manchester.ac.uk
Simon Marvin
Salford University, Manchester, UK. s.marvin@salford.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: The increasingly complex challenges of making water management more sustainable require a critical and detailed understanding of the social organisation of water. This paper examines the hitherto neglected role that 'intermediary' organisations play in reshaping the relations between the provision and use of water and sanitation services. In response to new regulatory, environmental, social, and commercial pressures the relationships between water utilities, consumers, and regulators are changing, creating openings for both new and existing organisations to take on intermediary functions. Drawing on recent EU-funded research we provide the first systematic analysis of intermediary organisations in the European water sector, examining the contexts of their emergence, the ways they work, the functions they perform, and the impacts they can have. With a combination of conceptual and empirical analysis we substantiate and elaborate the case for appreciating the often hidden work of intermediaries. We caution, however, against over-simplistic conclusions on harnessing this potential, highlighting instead the need to reframe perspectives on how water is organised to contemplate actor constellations and interactions beyond the common triad of provider, consumer, and regulator.

Water and poverty in two Colombian watersheds

Nancy Johnson
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya; n.johnson@cgiar.org
James Garcia
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Cali, Colombia; j.garcia@cgiar.org
Jorge E. Rubiano
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Cali, Colombia; j.rubiano@cgiar.org
Marcela Quintero
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Cali, Colombia; m.quintero@cgiar.org
Ruben Dario Estrada
Consorcio para el Desarrollo Sostenible de la Ecorregion Andina, Cali, Colombia; rdestrada@cgiar.org
Esther Mwangi
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, DC; e.mwangi@cgiar.org
Adriana Morena
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, Cali, Colombia; adrimoreno9@hotmail.com
Alexandra Peralta
Department of Agriculture, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State Univ.; peralta3@msu.edu
Sara Granados
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, Cali, Colombia; sgranados.fao@cable.net.co

ABSTRACT: Watersheds, especially in the developing world, are increasingly being managed for both environmental conservation and poverty alleviation. How complementary are these objectives? In the context of a watershed, the actual and potential linkages between land and water management and poverty are complex and likely to be very site specific and scale dependent. This study analyses the importance of watershed resources in the livelihoods of the poor in two watersheds in the Colombian Andes. Results of the participatory poverty assessment reveal significant decreases in poverty in both watersheds over the past 25 years, which was largely achieved by the diversification of livelihoods outside of agriculture. Water is an important resource for household welfare. However, opportunities for reducing poverty by increasing the quantity or quality of water available to the poor may be limited. While improved watershed management may have limited direct benefits in terms of poverty alleviation, there are important indirect linkages between watershed management and poverty, mainly through labour and service markets. The results suggest that at the level of the watershed the interests of the rich and the poor are not always in conflict over water. Sectoral as well as socio-economic differences define stakeholder groups in watershed management. The findings have implications for policymakers, planners and practitioners in various sectors involved in the implementation of integrated water resources management (IWRM).

Transforming Rural Water Governance: Towards Deliberative and Polycentric Models?

Andreas Neef

Path dependencies and institutional bricolage in post-Soviet water governance

Jenniver Sehring
Institute of Political Science and Social Research, University of Wuerzburg, Germany; jenniver.sehring@uni-wuerzburg.de

ABSTRACT: Following their independence, the two Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan decided on similar water governance reforms: transfer of local irrigation management to water user associations, introduction of pricing mechanisms, and establishment of hydrographic management principles. In both states, however, proper implementation is lacking. This paper aims to explain this contradiction and focuses on agricultural water governance reforms at the local level as an interdependent part of a multilevel water governance structure.
Based on empirical findings, four variables through which the neopatrimonial context in both countries impacts water governance are identified: the decision-making process, the agricultural sector, the local governance institutions, and internal water-institutional linkages. A historical-institutionalist perspective shows how path dependencies limit reform effectiveness: institutionalised Soviet and pre-Soviet patterns of behaviour still shape actors'€™ responses to new challenges. Consequently, rules and organisations established formally by the state or international donor organisations are undermined by informal institutions. Yet, informal institutions are not only an obstacle to reform, but can also support it. They are not static but dynamic. This is elucidated with the concept of 'institutional bricolage', which explains how local actors recombine elements of different institutional logics and thereby change their meaning.

KEYWORDS: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, irrigation, water governance, new institutionalism

Developing participatory models of watershed management in the Sugar Creek watershed (Ohio, USA)

Jason Shaw Parker
Department of Horticulture and Crop Sciences, Columbus, OH, US; parker.294@osu.edu
Richard Moore
Human and Community Resource Development, Agriculture Administration, Columbus, OH, US; moore.11@osu.edu
Mark Weaver
Political Science, College of Wooster, Wooster, OH; mweaver@wooster.edu

ABSTRACT: The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has historically used an expert-driven approach to water and watershed management. In an effort to create regulatory limits for pollution-loading to streams in the USA, the USEPA is establishing limits to the daily loading of nutrients specific to each watershed, which will affect many communities in America. As a part of this process, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency ranked the Sugar Creek Watershed as the second "most-impaired" watershed in the State of Ohio. This article addresses an alternative approach to watershed management and that emphasises a partnership of farmers and researchers, using community participation in the Sugar Creek to establish a time-frame with goals for water quality remediation. Of interest are the collaborative efforts of a team of farmers, researchers, and agents from multiple levels of government who established this participatory, rather than expert-driven, programme. This new approach created an innovative and adaptive model of non-point source pollution remediation, incorporating strategies to address farmer needs and household decision making, while accounting for local and regional farm structures. In addition, this model has been adapted for point source pollution remediation that creates collaboration among local farmers and a discharge-permitted business that involves nutrient trading.

Place-based knowledge networks: The case of water management in South-West Victoria, Australia

Kevin O'€™Toole
School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University, Australia; otoole@deakin.edu.au
Anne Wallis
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Australia; amwallis@deakin.edu.au
Brad Mitchell
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Australia; bradm@deakin.edu.au

ABSTRACT: This article aims to investigate the need for effective exchanges between knowledge generators and knowledge users in water management. Firstly, we explore the use of adaptive management for water governance and then outline the communication issues of water-management knowledge at a regional scale. Central to this approach is the need to harness 'local' knowledge that can be used to develop community participation in local water governance. Accordingly, we propose a three-network communication model to illustrate the process and identify the issues of concern for developing place-based strategies. Since research plays a central role in knowledge generation, one of the first ways to proceed is to recognise local research and incorporate it into an inclusive decision-making process. One way to achieve this is through the development of regional networks that are openly available to all, and we explore this by focusing on the place of 'network thinking' at local scale using a newly developed regional network for local knowledge dissemination in south-west Victoria, Australia. We conclude that so far this new network is too heavily reliant upon one web-based tool and outline a broader range of strategies that can be used to achieve its aims.

Polycentrism and poverty: Experiences of rural water supply reform in Namibia

Thomas Falk
Institute for Co-operation in Developing Countries, Marburg, Germany; thomas.falk@staff.uni-marburg.de
Bernadette Bock
Ministry of Environment and Tourism of the Republic of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia; bbock@cppnam.net
Michael Kirk
Institute for Co-operation in Developing Countries, Marburg, Germany; kirk@staff.uni-marburg.de

ABSTRACT: Calls for new paradigms in water resource management have emerged from a broad range of commentators over the past decade. These calls arose as it became increasingly clear that the pressing problems in water resource management have to be tackled from an integrated polycentric perspective, taking into account interdependent economic, societal, environmental, institutional and technological factors. Adhering to the calls, Namibia designed polycentric water management approaches, with the objective of maximising economic and social welfare in an equitable manner and without compromising the sustainability of vital rural ecosystems. Understanding the barriers to integrated and adaptive management requires a critical reflection on conventional modes of governance. In this regard, Namibia has achieved great strides by shifting from monocentric public water management systems towards strongly community-based polycentric management.
This paper investigates how polycentric rural water supply reform impacts on natural resource management and water users'€™ livelihoods in three communal areas of Namibia. The analysis takes into account the effects of historic discriminative policies and the resulting low financial, human and social capital of rural communities. We conclude that the devolution of institutional and financial responsibility for water supply to users has had a positive impact on rural water management. However, the introduction of cost recovery principles conflicts with the objectives of the Namibian government to alleviate poverty and inequality. The high level of inequality within the country as a whole and also within communities impedes the development of fair fee systems. Polycentrism faces the major challenge of building on existing structures without replicating historic injustices. It allows, however, for the state to mitigate any negative impact on livelihoods. While the reform is in the process of full implementation, the government is discussing various options of how the poor can be guaranteed access to water without diminishing their development opportunities. The Namibian experience demonstrates the difficulties in developing effective incentive mechanisms without undermining major social objectives. Our analyses show that, compared to naive monocentric governance approaches, polycentrism offers much broader opportunities for achieving multidimensional objectives. Nonetheless, a reform does not become successful simply because it is polycentric.

KEYWORDS: Community-based natural resource management, decentralisation, cost recovery, poverty alleviation, Namibia

Viewpoint - Further ideas towards a water ethic

Adrian C. Armstrong
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK; drmudpie@aol.com

ABSTRACT: This essay expands the water ethic of Armstrong (2007) by identifying four main functions of water: as a source of life, as a land-forming element, as a habitat, and as a mover of materials (i.e. a geomorphological agent). It is suggested that from these functions, four guiding principles can then be derived: 1) in allocating water, human beings allocate life potential; 2) altering water fluxes affects the function of a whole system; 3) water is a (fundamental) component of the earth system in its own right; 4) water fluxes are essential for the continued function and maintenance of both biological and non-biological systems. From these a full ethical evaluation of any proposed action could be based on an environmental axis as well as on the economic axis in decision making. Such full analyses can often be reduced in practice to a series of 'rules of thumb' for everyday decisions. Some candidate rules are suggested. Focusing on practical decision making and action on the function of water offers a potential way of implementing the Leopold 'land ethic'.

KEYWORDS: Water ethic, water for life

Fishing for influence: Fisheries science and evidence in water resources development in the Mekong basin

Richard M. Friend
M-POWER, c/o USER, Chiang Mai University, Thailand; richardfriend10@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: During the last decade there has been a concerted effort in the Mekong basin to research the capture fisheries in an attempt to influence national and regional water resource policy and practice, particularly hydropower development. As a result of this research effort, the Mekong capture fisheries are better documented than ever before. There is broad consensus on the key conclusions of this research - on the scale and value of production, its importance to local livelihoods, and the ecological drivers of the natural productivity. Despite this research success the agendas of water resources management have not changed, and the pace of hydropower development has accelerated. This presents a dilemma for fisheries science and research in its efforts to influence policy. This paper considers the models and assumptions of policy influence that have underpinned this fisheries research effort, and presents alternative approaches for fisheries science to better engage in influencing policy. The paper argues that addressing the neglect of capture fisheries in the Mekong is fundamentally a governance challenge of setting development values and pathways. Meeting such a challenge, in the context of the Mekong, requires a democratising and civic science that broadens the decision-making arena as much as it produces new evidence and arguments.

African models for transnational river basin organisations in Africa: An unexplored dimension

Douglas J. Merrey
Independent Consultant. PO Box 27043, Monument Park 0181, Pretoria, South Africa; dougmerrey@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: One of the many legacies of colonialism in Africa is the multiplicity of river basins shared by two or more -€“ and often far more -€“ countries. Since changing national boundaries is not an option, African governments have no choice but to develop transnational institutions for developing shared water resources. Therefore, one finds a plethora of bilateral and multilateral committees, commissions, and authorities intended to facilitate agreements for infrastructural investments, management of water flows (quantity and quality), and response to disasters, especially floods. These efforts are supported by -€“ indeed often, at least behind the scenes, driven by -€“ western and international development partners. With few exceptions, the results to date are not impressive, as governments drag their feet on ratifying or implementing agreements and investing in creating the necessary institutional infrastructure, and donors' funds go unspent because such agreements are conditions precedent for investment. Despite the work done by many international and local non-government organisations (NGOs) as well as some governments, hardly any of the residents of African river basins are aware of these commissions. All of them are based on organisational models derived from western experiences and governing principles and are created by inter-governmental agreements. The citizens residing in the basin are rarely consulted. In some cases, powerful national hydraulic bureaucracies seek to control the process in an effort to gain leverage over infrastructural investments. There is a body of literature seeking to explain the ineffectiveness of transnational river basin management to date, largely based on political science, sociology and economics. Some but not all observers are concerned with the degree of democracy in the political process. This paper addresses a dimension that has received very little attention and therefore complements the existing literature. It explores the hypothesis that transnational river basin management institutions will achieve a higher degree of legitimacy and effectiveness in the long run if they are based on African institutional models rather than pursuing the current approach of imposing external models. This assumes the existence of local African indigenous models or principles that can be adapted to such large-scale hydraulic institutions. The paper argues this may indeed be the case though more detailed research is needed to document them, and a creative consultative political process would be needed to build on these foundations.

KEYWORDS: African institutional models, international waters, legal pluralism, river basin organisations, Southern African Development Community, transboundary rivers, transnational river basins

Continuing discontinuities: Local and state perspectives on cattle production and water management in Botswana

Emmanuel Manzungu
Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe; manzungu@mweb.co.zw
Tiego J. Mpho
UNDP-Government of Botswana Environment Support Programme, Gaborone, Botswana; nauvoo76@yahoo.co.uk
Africa Mpale-Mudanga
Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, Gaborone, Botswana; mmpale-mudanga@gov.bw

ABSTRACT: From 1885 when the modern state of Botswana was founded until the discovery of significant mineral deposits in 1967, one year after independence, the livestock industry, particularly cattle production, played a significant role in the country'€™s economy. Today there are concerns about how the livestock industry, because of its importance to many rural households, and its potential to diversify the mineral-dominated economy, can be revived. In recognition of the country's semi-arid climate, the government has promoted a policy of developing water sources for livestock watering. The state has acknowledged the policy has largely been ineffective, but continues to implement it. This paper attempts to explain this paradox by examining state and local perspectives in the management of water and related resources in the Botswana part of the Limpopo river basin. The discontinuities between the local inhabitants and state practitioners are analyzed within the wider physical social, political, and economic landscape. We ascribe the continued implementation of an ineffective policy to modernisation claims.

Andreas Thiel
Department of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany; a.thiel@staff.hu-berlin.de

ABSTRACT: Institutional arrangements to provide water services have been reshaped extensively worldwide. This paper provides a theory-informed account of the way in which water service provision has been physically and institutionally restructured in the Algarve, Portugal over the years. Ever-expanding demands for water services by the tourism sector, along with European Union (EU) regulations and money, made the local people dependent on national policy for water service provision. Parts of the Portuguese national elite, favouring the construction of water resources as "strategic", "social" goods rather than "economic", "scarce" goods, worked towards installing national level control over water services. They became part of the state'€™s decentralised hegemonic spatial strategy for expansion of tourism in the Algarve. The district level was constituted as a decentralised level of national resource governance. The case study shows the role of European policies in restructuring the spatio-temporal order in the Algarve and strengthening the influence of the national state within the region. The reconfiguration of the water sector in Portugal illustrates 'Spatial Keynesianism' with half-hearted mercantilisação of water services as an outcome of a juxtaposition of a nationally rooted state-led water service provision within more flexible approaches originating at the European level. A consequential outcome has been that water quality, sewage treatment and reliability of services, has significantly improved in line with European requirements.

KEYWORDS: European policies, rescaling, water management, national state, sanitation, Algarve, Portugal

Ana Elisa Cascão
Department of Geography, King'€™s College of London, United Kingdom; ana.cascao@kcl.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: The aim of this article is to identify where and how power relations in the Nile river basin have changed over the past decade, and to analyse how these dynamics have influenced not only the political relations between upstream and downstream riparians but also the management and allocation of the shared Nile water resources. The article sheds light on the ongoing political and economic changes in the upstream countries (as well as in Sudan) and on how these dynamics might affect and challenge both the regional balance of power and the ongoing regional cooperation process. A critical analysis of the relationship between power shifts and the evolution of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) will be provided. Finally, the article questions how unilateralist and multilateralist hydropolitical trends have co-existed in the Nile basin, and identifies possible future scenarios.

KEYWORDS: Nile river basin, power relations, change, unilateralism, cooperation, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia

The politics of PVC: Technology and institutions in upland water management in northern Thailand

Nathan Badenoch
Northern Agriculture and Forestry Research Center/Ramboll Natura, Vientiane, Lao PDR; baideanach@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Conflict over water has grown in the mountainous areas of Thailand since the replacement of opium with alternative crops. PVC-sprinkler irrigation has enabled dry-season expansion of these cash crops on sloping lands, intensifying demand for water when it is most scarce. The technology and institutions that form the backbone of these irrigation systems have evolved simultaneously in a process of adaptive governance, in which local farmers draw on local social resources to balance competition and cooperation. Common conceptions of upstream€-downstream conflict, pitting Thai against ethnic minorities in a struggle for resources, dominate the discourse of watersheds in Thailand. Upland water users themselves are diverse and their resource management systems are dynamic, even if they are not recognised as legitimate users of water. Understanding how upland communities create local systems of resource governance through dry-season irrigation is highly relevant for governance at higher levels, such as in the efforts to establish watershed networks and river basin organisations.

KEYWORDS: Water management, adaptive governance, sprinkler irrigation, institutional development, Northern Thailand

Is the water sector lagging behind education and health on aid effectiveness? Lessons from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Uganda

Katharina Welle
STEPS Centre/SPRU, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK; k.welle@sussex.ac.uk
Josephine Tucker
Overseas Development Institute, London, UK; j.tucker@odi.org.uk
Alan Nicol
World Water Council, Marseille, France; a.nicol@worldwatercouncil.org
Barbara Evans
University of Leeds, School of Civil Engineering, Leeds, UK; b.e.evans@leeds.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: A study in three countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Uganda) assessed progress against the Paris Principles for Aid Effectiveness (AE) in three sectors -€“ water, health and education -€“ to test the assumption that the water sector is lagging behind. The findings show that it is too simplistic to say that the water sector is lagging, although this may well be the case in some countries. The study found that wider governance issues are more important for AE than having in place sector-specific mechanics such as Sector-Wide Approaches alone. National political leadership and governance are central drivers of sector AE, while national financial and procurement systems and the behaviour of actors who have not signed up to the Paris Principles -€“ at both national and global levels -€“ have implications for progress that cut across sectors. Sectors and sub-sectors do nonetheless have distinct features that must be considered in attempting to improve sector-level AE. In light of these findings, using political economy approaches to better understand and address governance and strengthening sector-level monitoring is recommended as part of efforts to improve AE and development results in the water sector.

KEYWORDS: Aid effectiveness, water, health, education, governance, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Uganda