David Groenfeldt
Water-Culture Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA; dgroenfeldt@waterculture.org

ABSTRACT: Water policies are based on ethical assumptions, and efforts to promote more sustainable policies need to address those underlying values. The history of water policies from 'command-and-control' to more ecological approaches reveals an ethical evolution, but adaptation to climate change will require further ethical shifts. The case of the Santa Fe river in New Mexico (USA) illustrates how values that go unrecognised interfere with sustainable management. Exploring the underlying value dynamics is an essential step in the policy reform process and takes on added urgency in the face of climate change and the need to formulate adaptive water strategies. Bringing the topic of values and ethics into the water policy discourse can help clarify management goals and promote more sustainable practices.

Adam Fforde
Chairman, Adam Fforde and Assoc p/l; Asia Institute, University of Melbourne; Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University; adam@aduki.com.au

ABSTRACT: Vietnam is widely seen as a development success, with rather rapid economic growth and a reported reduced role of the state, yet presents many paradoxes to conventional analytical frameworks. Two of relevance are accounts that stress a combination of a strongly hegemonic regime with weak internal sovereignty in terms of both the internal coherence of the apparat and its interactions with the rest of Vietnamese society, and also associated accounts that deny much role to intentionality in explaining apparent development success. This article will contextualise accounts of political intention and policy development towards water issues in Vietnam through an examination of two main empirics: the evolution of formal policy, understood as documents of the state, as well as of political intention, understood as documents of the ruling Party; and the by now extensive series of 'active' case studies that have examined donor as well as other projects in the sector. It will examine the notion, in the contexts suggested by the Vietnamese experience, that attempts to explain Vietnamese water policy, which have shown a tendency to shift away from assumptions that an analytical framework's categories may easily and without too much risk be extended across different contexts. Rather, comparisons of Vietnamese experience across contexts will tend, if they are to be persuasive, to shift to the use of languages that reflect ontological fluidity, in that what things mean is expected to change over time, without reference to an imagined transcendental and universal 'real'. In this sense, Vietnamese water policy may be usefully understood as an example of how 'success gives voice to the local'.

James Nickum
Tokyo Jogakkan College, Japan; nickum.water@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: This essay explores the nature of China'€™s unique decentralised 'authoritarian' regime and its various origins; the continuous dialectic between state-directed and market-directed approaches to the economy (including water); the economic and budgetary drivers of water policy change; whether the concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM) is overly 'loaded' with liberal ideas or even if not, whether it provides any insights beyond concepts more widely accepted in China; whether the state-society dichotomy makes sense in China'€™s guanxi (personal relations) culture; and the course of the World Bank-sponsored Self-funded/managed Irrigation and Drainage District (SIDD) reforms.

Larry A. Swatuk
University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; lswatuk@uwaterloo.ca

ABSTRACT: This article sets contemporary challenges to good water governance in South Africa within an important historical context. While it is correct to say that 'the world water crisis is a crisis of governance', it is problematic to assume that all states can follow a similar path toward environmentally sustainable, economically efficient and socially equitable water resources governance and management. The nexus of decision-making power varies within and beyond states, and over time. Gramsci (1971) describes this as the "constellation of social forces". Where this constellation of social forces achieves consensus, a 'historic bloc' is said to emerge giving rise to a particular state form. The South African state form has varied greatly over several centuries, giving rise to various historic blocs. The resulting body of laws and policies and the varied forms of infrastructure that were developed to harness water for multiple social practices over time constitute a complex political ecological terrain not easily amenable to oversimplified frameworks for good water governance. This article outlines the role of water in the history of South Africa'€™s multiple state forms. It shows that over time, water policy, law and institutions came to reflect the increasingly complex needs of multiple actors (agriculture, mining, industry, cities, the newly enfranchised) represented by different state forms and their characteristic political regimes: the Dutch East India Company; the British Empire; the Union of South Africa; the apartheid and post-apartheid republics. Authoritarian, semi-authoritarian and democratic state forms have all used central-state power to serve particular interests. Through time, this constellation of social forces has widened until, today, the state has taken upon itself the task of providing "some water for all forever" (slogan of the Department of Water Affairs). As this article suggests, despite the difficult challenges presented by a mostly arid climate, this means 'adding in' the water demand of millions of people, but not 'allocating out' those privileged under other constellations of social forces as they contribute most substantially to economic growth. The implication, therefore, is a modified hydraulic mission involving significant new infrastructure and, in all likelihood, inter-basin transfers from beyond South Africa'€™s borders.

Peter P. Mollinga
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK; pm35@soas.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: This introductory article of the special section introduces the central question that the section addresses: do water policy dynamics in (semi-)authoritarian states have specific features as compared to other state forms? The article situates the question in the post-Cold War global water governance dynamics, argues that the state is a useful and required entry point for water policy analysis, explores the meaning of (semi-) authoritarian as a category, and finally introduces the three papers, which are on China, South Africa and Vietnam.

Govind Gopakumar
Assistant Professor, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada; govind@encs.concordia.ca

ABSTRACT: Public-private partnerships (PPP) are an important governance strategy that has recently emerged as a solution to enhance the access of marginalised residents to urban infrastructures. With the inception of neo-liberal economic reforms in India, in Indian cities too PPP has emerged as an innovative approach to expand coverage of water supply and sanitation infrastructures. However, there has been little study of the dynamics of partnership efforts in different urban contexts: What role do they play in transforming existing infrastructure regimes? Do reform strategies such as partnerships result in increased privatisation or do they make the governance of infrastructures more participative? Reviewing some of the recent literature on urban political analysis, this article develops the concept of water supply regime to describe the context of water provision in three metropolitan cities in India. To further our understanding of the role of PPP within regimes, this article sketches five cases of water supply and sanitation partnerships located within these three metropolitan cities. From these empirical studies, the article arrives at the conclusion that while PPP are always products of the regime-context they are inserted within, quite often strategic actors in the partnership use the PPP to further their interests by initiating a shift in the regime pathway. This leads us to conclude that PPPs do play a role in making water supply regimes more participative but that depends on the nature of the regime as well as the actions of partners.

Wijanto Hadipuro
Post Graduate Programme on Environment and Urban Studies, Soegijapranata Catholic University, Semarang, Indonesia; hadipuro@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: Due to financial and operational problems faced by local Indonesian water supply companies (Perusahaan Daerah Air Minum -€“ PDAMs), people depend for their domestic water on many private providers, who use groundwater as their source. Within this context, this article interrogates the current water supply regulatory framework and its implications. Indonesia is at the crossroads of treating water supply as a public service or commercialising it through market or market proxy mechanisms. Through content analysis and a literature study on the impacts of such regulations in the past, this article shows that Indonesia'€™s regulatory framework lends itself to the commercialisation option. Some findings on the current regulations and their impacts indicate that awarding commercial water rights has the potential to marginalise traditional users as well as create administrative problems; adopting the full cost recovery concept has made PDAMs reluctant to expand their services, especially to the poor; inviting the private sector to manage water supply is surely not in the best interests of the provision of public services; assigning an Indonesian National Standard (SNI) has resulted in bottled water becoming the most reliable drinking water; and allowing groundwater extraction to take place without sufficient regulation and law enforcement has resulted in excessive extraction at a detriment to the environment.

Cathleen Seeger
Policy Advisor, German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), Eschborn, Germany; cathleen.seeger@gtz.de
Kirsten Nyman
Project Coordinator, German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), Eschborn, Germany; kirsten.nyman@gtz.de
Richard Twum
Executive Director, Volta Basin Development Foundation (VBDF), Accra, Ghana; rtwumus@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: After long and intense discussions on the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), large dams are back on the agenda of international finance institutions. Asia, Latin America and Africa are planning to expand their hydropower utilisation. Hydropower is a key component of renewable energy, and therefore supports protection against climate change. Water storage over the long term and flood control are the main issues discussed with regard to climate adaptation measures.

Such trends are reflected by the increasing engagement of the German Development Cooperation (GDC) in the field of integrated water resources management (IWRM) programmes on the national and regional levels. A number of projects on transboundary water management in Africa, Central Asia and in the Mekong region have been initiated. In the context of these and other bilateral water and energy projects, partner countries are increasingly requesting the GDC to advise on the planning and management of sustainable hydropower.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has for the last decade been known as a promoter of multi-stakeholder dialogues and as a supporter during the WCD process and the Dams and Development Project (DDP) of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). In addition, it has a reputation as an important bilateral and neutral partner. The BMZ recognises hydropower as a source of renewable energy, and acknowledges the potential and need for multipurpose usages of dams, as well as its role in global energy change. However, large dams also have to meet social and ecological requirements for their sustainable use. In this respect, the BMZ endorsed the WCD recommendations.

Germany'™s engagement in the promotion of participatory processes on dam-related issues is building on the WCD and follow-up processes, as outlined in this article. On the global level, BMZ, represented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), is currently part of the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum (HSAF). On the national level, one example of support is the contribution to and interaction with the Ghana Dam Dialogue, which is facilitated through two local partners: the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Volta Basin Development Foundation (VBDF).

Jamie Pittock
Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia; jamie.pittock@anu.edu.au

ABSTRACT: Ten years ago the World Commission on Dams (WCD) report established new standards for the sustainable development of water infrastructure, but the hopes many of us had then for a new era of more thoughtful development have been attenuated by the resilience of the hydraulic bureaucracy and the emergence of new influences on the hydropower debate. Particularly important is the impact of climate change as a driver of government policies in favour of hydropower, water storage and inter-basin water transfers. As a former Director of Freshwater for WWF International and now as a researcher on the water-energy nexus, I spent much of the past decade seeking to influence the direction of water infrastructure development, and in this viewpoint I have been asked to reflect on the changes that have occurred, and the opportunities in an era of climate change to reduce the environmental and social impacts of hydropower development while maximising the benefits. Better outcomes are more likely with a renewed focus on limiting the perverse impacts of climate change policies, implementing standards for certification of more sustainable hydropower, building capacities within developing countries, and enhancing management of existing dams.

D. Mark Smith
Head, Water Programme, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Gland, Switzerland; mark.smith@iucn.org

ABSTRACT: The WCD laid out a way forward for dams to serve development better, and to deliver better outcomes for people as well as ecosystems. The conclusions reached were evidence-based and made in an open, multi-stakeholder dialogue. Given this process and taken as a whole, the WCD could not be ignored in 2000, and ten years later in 2010, the WCD still cannot be dismissed. To be meaningful in the long-run, however, the WCD required follow-up. Among many needs was the challenge of translating principles and guidelines developed at a global level to practice that could be implemented at a national and project level. IUCN'€™s response, for example, has been very practical and oriented principally towards dissemination, dialogue, demonstration and learning.

The WCD recommendations were not embraced by all stakeholders, and it is increasingly clear that the drivers for dam development and the actors involved are changing, because of for example climate change and the emergence of China as a major international financier of dams. It may be time therefore to renew efforts to expand consensus on dams and re-galvanise the global multi-stakeholder dialogue that was started by the WCD. Otherwise, the 21st century dams industry will run into the same risks - fuelled by issues of equity, environment and dissatisfaction with development outcomes achieved -€“ that brought their counterparts into the WCD in 1998.

KEYWORDS: Multi-stakeholder dialogue, learning, demonstration, sustainability

Joji Cariño
Former Commissioner, World Commission on Dams; Policy Advisor, Tebtebba, Baguio City, Philippines; tongtong@gn.apc.org
Marcus Colchester
Director, Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh, UK; marcus@forestpeoples.org

ABSTRACT: The World Commission on Dams (WCD) helped establish as development best practice the requirement to respect the right of indigenous peoples to give or withhold their 'free, prior and informed consent' (FPIC) to development projects that will affect them. Recognition of this right helps redress the unequal power relations between indigenous peoples and others seeking access to their lands and resources. In this Viewpoint, we examine the evolution of policy in the ten years since the publication of the WCD Report, and how FPIC has been affirmed as a right of indigenous peoples under international human rights law and as industry best practice for extractive industries, logging, forestry plantations, palm oil, protected areas and, most recently, for projects to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. To date, relatively few national legal frameworks explicitly require respect for this right and World Bank standards have yet to be revised in line with these advances in international law. We analyse how international law also needs to clarify how the right to FPIC relates to the State'™s power to impose resource exploitation in the 'national interest' and whether 'local communities' more broadly also enjoy the right to FPIC. In practice, as documented in this Viewpoint and in the cases we review, the right to FPIC is widely abused by corporations and State agencies. A growing tendency to reduce implementation of FPIC to a simplified check list of actions for outsiders to follow, risks again removing control over decisions from indigenous peoples. For FPIC to be effective it must respect indigenous peoples' rights to control their customary lands, represent themselves through their own institutions and make decisions according to procedures and rhythms of their choosing.