A principios de la década de los ochenta, Chile adoptó un nuevo Código de Aguas cuyo objeto central fue fortalecer la propiedad privada, limitar el rol del Estado en la gestión del agua y generar un mercado del agua bajo el supuesto de que ello promovería la inversión privada y llevaría a la eficiencia en la asignación del agua. Estas reformas, especialmente las tendentes a la creación de un mercado del agua, han despertado gran interés en todo el mundo. En algunos países, los anteproyectos de leyes de aguas escogidos para ser debatidos han sido una copia casi fiel del Código de Aguas de Chile de 1981 (en adelante, el Código). Sin embargo en su difusión se menciona rara vez, si alguna, los problemas que su aplicación ha provocado, como tampoco el amplio debate que existe en Chile en relación a las propuestas para modificarlo. El presente artículo analiza las principales lecciones de la experiencia de Chile en materia de mercados del agua. Se basa en tres estudios realizados por la División de Recursos Naturales e Infraestructura de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) sobre el tema (Dourojeanni y Jouravlev, 1999; Lee y Jouravlev, 1998; CEPAL, 1995).
This chapter focuses on how to improve water allocation considering the water user majorities in Andean countries: the needs, capacities, opportunities, and obstacles of the peasant and indigenous communities, and local water management platforms. The water management context and policy debate are first briefly outlined, with a particular focus on watershed management and decentralization. The chapter then discusses the rightsbased orientation of various water policy proposals for improving watershed management, defining four exemplary approaches. A brief overview presents their conceptual underpinning and their practical outcomes for water conflict resolution and integrated water management. The chapter concludes with the presentation of basic elements for analyzing and setting up consensus-oriented water management strategies, and recommendations and process guidelines for user-oriented water policies. F armer-managed water use and production systems form the backbone of local and national economies and food security in most Andean countries, but face increasing problems. 1 Growing demographic pressure contributes to the degeneration of natural resources and local livelihood systems, and the processes of migration, globalization, and urbanization of rural areas, among others, profoundly change the agrarian structure and living conditions. New interest groups enter the territories of local peasant and indigenous communities and often take over a substantive share of existing water resources, thereby neglecting local rules, rights, and agreements. The new water management context leads to increasing inequality, poverty, conflict, and ecological destruction. Consequently, rural communities particularly suffer from the current water crises. Together with other stakeholder groups who lack influence in water policymaking and implementation, they may be characterized as the tail-enders of current water society. Traditionally, water legislation and policies in the Andean countries have paid little attention to locally existing water rights frameworks, their problems, and their solutions. With rapidly growing pressure on water resources and increasing claims and conflicts among multiple use sectors, conventional bureaucratic and free market water allocation approaches seem to have worsened the crisis, instead of contributing to its solution. As in other parts of the world, new policies for the regulation, intervention, and adaptation of water management are being developed as an answer to water crises. These often refer to participation, decentralization, and transferring management to local government. In principle, these could be major steps toward strengthening users' organizations, by granting them greater decisionmaking power and security in their water rights and respecting sufficient autonomy for water management according to their needs and potential. However, in these times of radical state downsizing in the Andean countries, the slogan of participation is often also a facade for the underlying intention to aba...
It specifically analyzes how it is carried out and how the management of water resources can be improved for its integral management. It is emphasized that what is really important is to give a comprehensive treatment to the water system, its collection and evacuation basins, regardless of whether the management system itself is integrated or not. To facilitate the analysis a systemic approach is used. The conceptual framework provides a classification of management levels into four categories: scientific-environmental, economic-productive, technical-normative and political-social; these levels are associated with different management areas. In order to conduct environmental management processes, in particular for management of water resources for multiple use, two delimitation criteria must be taken into account: the political-administrative and the geographical-ecological. If management systems are brought together in relation to these two limits, it is possible to arrive at a more effective form of environmental management.
The virtues of integrated water resource management have been widely extolled in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to review selected aspects of Latin American and Caribbean experience which may provide insights on the constraints and opportunities for progressing towards such integration. Economic development and population growth are placing demands on water which are increasing exponentially. However, with a few exceptions, governments have shown little effective response to the broader issues in resolving the inevitable conflicts. Formulation of plans and policies appears straightforward and it is easier still to recommend implementation by powerful co-ordinating agencies. However, practice bears little relation to theory. This suggests that a focus on questions other than technical optimization might be relevant. Attention needs to be given to the institutional structure - formal and informal rules - which determine why decisions are made at the political, organizational and operational levels resulting in de facto water management. Greater transparency on the informal rules may enable more systematic transactions between and within these three levels (particularly within the organizational level) leading to changes which would allow incorporation of a broader and more long-term view of renewable resource management issues.
he Andean regions of Latin America encompass a vast mountainous zone of alternating high peaks, hillsides and relatively narrow valleys; rivers and ravines form a large number of basins in this area inhabited by scattered population groups which exert heavy pressure on the fragile renewable resources to be found there. In order to live in this environment, the inhabitants of the Andes must have the organization and know-how necessary not only to meet their own food production needs through proper management of natural resources-mainly water and the soil-but also to promote the conservation of those resources. In the opinion of the authors, history demon strates that the pre-hispanic inhabitants considered three elements as being essential for proper manage ment of the basins in general and of water in partic ular: (a) the organization and coordinated participa tion of the community in the work; (b) the use of technologies and working methods adapted to the zone; and (c) control over a sufficiently large vertical and horizontal area to allow various ecological levels to be managed simultaneously. At present there are still only a few govern ment-sponsored programmes and projects in Latin America which take the above considerations into account and devote their efforts to providing technical assistance to the peasants for integral management of basins or hillsides on the basis of appropriate tech nologies. The study emphasizes, however, that the programmes in operation which cover these aspects, although few in number, indicate that there is a vast potential for the exchange of know-how through appropriate horizontal cooperation machinery. Such cooperation would primarily take place among the countries of the Andean region, but could be expanded to include all of the region's mountainous areas, thus benefiting the rural population of moun tainous areas throughout Latin America.
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