Benefit Sharing Mechanisms: improving the water management in

the Andes

September 2013

Content

Andean Context

BSM: a way to improve water management and reduce water related conflicts

Opportunities for collaboration

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Andean Context

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Source: Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan)

Percentage of total global water resources

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Source: Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan)

Percentage of use of available water per country

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Water use

Access (rural areas):Potable water: 75%Drain: 50%

Water use efficiency:Potable: 60% (40% loss)Agriculture: 35% (65% loss)

Contamination:sewage treatment: 13%Agrochemicals, mining, industry…

Conflicts related with water:Only in Peru is recorded so far this year more than 400 conflicts (ANA).

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Urbanization: drastic increase in urban population, rural population more or less stable. Causes geographical concentration of water demand

Source: Presentation “Water Management and Climate Change”, by Axel Dourojeanni, Lima 2010.

Source: Estrategia Andina para GIRH, CAN 2010.8

Free trade agreements boost agroindustry for export, but large differences between countries

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Land degradation: loss of regulation capacity in mountain catchments

Source: Wouter Buytaert, 2010.10

Important drivers in Andes (3)

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Climate change: vertical altitudinal moves certain, everything else very uncertain

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For Andean peoples, water is much more than a hydric resource:

• Water is a living being• Water is a divine being• Water is the basis of reciprocity and complementarity• Water is a universal and community right• Water is an expression of flexibility and adaptability• Water is a creator and transformer• Water is social recreation

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BSM: a way to improve water management and reduce water related conflicts

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• CPWF-Andes programme aim:• to increase water productivity and reduce water-related

conflict in selected basins through the development of more equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms (BSM)

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BSM? • While a more precise definition is part of our ongoing

research, preliminary approaches from the CPWF-Andes projects define BSM as :

• A processes of collective action that seek to guarantee the satisfaction of collective and individual interests without prejudicing the basic resources, the quality of life and the well-being of the population and the actors involved in the watershed.

• A mechanism negotiated between the actors that benefits from ES and those whose decisions determine the provision of ES, in order to share among them the benefits provided by ES; or the cost of improving the ES delivery

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How can we make the people who benefit from hydrological services (for example, those who consume water in the city or those who use irrigation water for agricultural production) contribute to the well-being of those who guarantee its generation and conservation (such as communities whose territories include Andean forests, paramos and puna)?

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Preservation and / or restoration of watershed services: water regulation, groundwater recharge and conservation of water quality

Consensus building process

Incentives

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Better informationCapacity building

Better informationCapacity building

Benefit Sharing Mechanisms in the Andes are helping to create a virtuous circle between the welfare of people and the ecosystems they live in.

One of the keys to a successful BSM is to ensure it is designed within the local social and hydrological context, and, is continually revised to respond to the ever-changing environment and community needs.

BSMs work best where there is a high downstream demand and limited seasonal water supply upstream - however in these circumstances there is often a large power difference between stakeholders. The poorest having the least access to information and negotiating power. To ensure the agreements reached are equitable and help fight poverty it is essential that all stakeholders are provided with all necessary information to make informed decisions.

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One of the most well known forms of Benefit Sharing Mechanisms are market driven Payment for Ecosystem Services, or PES.

However these are just one type of benefit sharing mechanism and in many circumstances a market driven approach is simply not able deliver a fair or environmentally sustainable solution.

In fact today, the majority of successful BSMs in the Andes are not market driven PES solutions, rather they are BSMs that have been created through consultative process and driven by communities themselves.

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Opportunities for collaboration

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• Research and Capacity building

We need more reliable and timely information to understand the hydrology of the Andean watersheds, its hydrological environmental services, the land degradation and the connection between these issues and the poverty at the basins.

At the same time, we have a clear demand to improve the capacity of local and subnational water governance structures to become the force to transform the way the water resources is managed and to influence the national structures.

• Improving Andean communities livelihoods

There are long-term land and water management's processes already happening in our basins that eager to engage with research organizations to find better answer to their current water management challenges. Therefore, Andean basins offer a unique opportunity to quickly transform research into impact, improving people's livelihoods with sound science.

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• Global dialogue on global issues

Andes offer an opportunity to extract lessons for other regions in the world because the diversity of ecosystems and stakeholders interacting at different basins. This particularity offer a reach diversity of water management scenarios.

In the same line, current research in the Andes is connecting water management with global issues: food security, biodiversity, risk management and climate change.

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Construyendo Construyendo soluciones soluciones juntosjuntos, ,

desde nuestra desde nuestra diversidaddiversidad, ,

desde nuestro desde nuestro sabersaber, , en armonía con el en armonía con el ambienteambiente..

miguel.saravia@condesan.orghttp://www.condesan.org http://www.infoandina.org

GRACIAS