enhancing water security for the benefit of humans and nature
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Professor Claudia Pahl-Wostl, University of Osnabrück, Germany --- Enhancing water security for the benefit of humans and nature – a multi-level governance challengeTRANSCRIPT
Enhancing water security to the benefits of humans and nature –
a multi-level governance challenge
Claudia Pahl-Wostl
Professor for Resource Management University of Osnabrück, Germany
Co-Chair Global Water System Project
Some statements to start with
Ø Human water security has often been achieved to the detriment of the environment
Ø and with negative, sometimes irreversible impacts on the resilience of social-ecological systems
Ø Good governance essential to enhance water security without jeopardizing sustainability
Ø Move from discourse to effective structural change
Normative principles good water governance:
– Participatory
– Consensus oriented
– Accountable
– Transparent
– Responsive
– Effective and efficient
– Equitable and inclusive
– Follows the rule of law
AND
– Flexible and adaptive
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, 2003
Moving from discourse to structural change
Context Frames Actions Outcomes
Single-Loop LearningIncremental improvement of
established routines
Double-Loop LearningReframing
Triple-Loop Learning
Transforming
Context Frames Actions Outcomes
Single-Loop LearningIncremental improvement of
established routines
Double-Loop LearningReframing
Triple-Loop Learning
Transforming
Discourse Structural Change
Framework of analysis for diagnostic approach
…. analyse how certain characteristics of a water governance system influence its performance and how this is affected by the context in which the system is embedded
Water Governance
System
Context
Performance
Becoming richer no guarantee for improvement…..
Performance as Function of GDP
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
0 5.000 10.000 15.000 20.000 25.000 30.000 35.000 40.000
GDP per capita ppc
Tota
l Per
form
ance
[% m
ax]
Insights Twin2Go Governance System –> Performance
Ø No support for simple recipes (panaceas)
Ø Regulatory frameworks necessary but not sufficient
Ø Associations rarely confounded by context – but context important to explain variation in associations
-> Transfer of general principles that can be tailored to context
Ø Adaptive capacity (CC adaptation) strongly related to polycentric governance, knowledge management and innovative ways for dealing with uncertainty
Ø Economic development leads to fulfilling needs of human population but to a much lesser extent of the environment
Ø Cases where rivers are (still) in good condition have often poor governance and management systems
Transformation towards adaptive governance and enhanced water security requires…
…. a balance between decentralization and coordination to avoid
both fragmentation and rigid central control -> POLYCENTRIC
…. an integration of governance modes
…. a balance between economic and institutional development
…. an explicit integration of learning cycles into policy and management processes
The way forward
} Comparative analyses of transformative capacity of Water Governance and Management Systems
} Development of context-sensitive policy advice to support sustainable transformations towards enhanced water security
} Build global learning network of transition basins