Unpacking Water Governance: A Framework for Practitioners

Abstract

Water governance has emerged as an important topic in the international arena and is acknowledged to be a crucial factor for adequate and sustained progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. However, there is not enough clarity about the practical meaning of the term “water governance” and how to work with it. This paper reviews the term’s use, to reveal how the concept is understood, referred to, and implemented in practice by different stakeholders. Based on literature review and consultations with experts, we identify and describe the core components of water governance (functions), describe their potential qualities when performed (attributes), and how they interrelate with the values and aspirations of the different stakeholders to achieve certain outcomes. These different components are described in detail to construct an operational framework to assess and work with water governance, which covers water and sanitation services delivery, water resources management and transboundary waters. This paper’s findings provide practical guidance for decision makers and practitioners on how action-oriented water governance processes can be meaningfully designed, and ultimately, how to strengthen efforts aiming to improve water governance.

Citizen participation dilemmas in water governance: An empirical case of Kumasi, Ghana

“…Study findings indicate that pertinent issues compiled by GWCL are only documented without pragmatic steps towards resolution or any form of citizen’s feedback. The situation, therefore, renders the radio participation ‘formula’ more of a one-way communication mode rather than the dialogic mode that is strongly promoted in participatory models (see Jiménez et al, 2020 ). In many instances, respondents indicated that although citizens are sometimes informed about these radio sessions, these programs are usually hijacked by the thoughts of the GWCL than proper agreements with residents.…”

Implementation Constraints on Israel–Palestine Water Cooperation: An Analysis Using the Water Governance Assessment Framework

“…The literature has offered a rich variety of frameworks that can be used to assess water governance practices [24]. For example, the 10 Building Blocks Framework [20], the OECD Water Governance Indicator Framework [25], the Governance Capacity Framework [26], the Operational Framework for Water Governance [27], and frameworks that focus on the conditions of good governance [28,29], and the individual governance criteria (such as effectivity, efficiency, and legitimacy) [30,31]. These frameworks demonstrate one of the more important general conditions, such as the importance of indicators [25], the interconnective capacity of governance [31], and the conditions for governance from a broad perspective [20,24,29,[32][33][34][35].…”

Data‐Based Water Governance

“…(2020), the core governance functions include policy and strategy, coordination, planning and preparedness, financing, management, monitoring, evaluation and learning, regulation and capacity development. The responsible authorities need to carry out these core governance functions coherently for the development of the sector (Jiménez et al ., 2020) with the help of accurate data, relevant information and the knowledge derived from these respectively. Preconditions for such a pervasive data management system demand smooth exchange of data/information between the stakeholders, a national network, supplemented by the local‐level agencies.…”