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| Wednesday, 24 November 2004 |
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Joining hands for better water management
The expertise needed to manage water is available in every country. There is little need for foreign consultants and expert advice in the area of water, especially for a country like Sri Lanka. What is necessary is a mechanism to bring the available local expertise together to work towards that common goal- sound water management that will meet the needs of this generation, but will not compromise the future generation's access to clean water. Margaret Catley-Carlson, the chairperson of Global Water Partnership (GWP) made this point at regular meeting of Sri Lanka's chapter of the GWP, Lanka Jalani, last week. The enigmatic Canadian, an ex-diplomat, with many credentials to her name, including being one-time head of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). She looked back on the time that GWP was formed as an answer to the ever-aggravating state of water mismanagement in the entire world. "The rule book for water management was written at a time when population pressures were few and there were not so many chemicals. Today the scenario is changed- both with excessive use of industrial and household chemicals, and a very large and increasing population. A huge number of people all over the world use water as a waste dump, compromising its quality and future use." It soon became obvious that there was going to be no piecemeal solution to the problems with water. The mantra for the world's water management had to change. The GWP therefore was the answer of the international donor-community to this challenge. The new way was to forge partnerships and enhance cooperation. Sectoral control and jealous guardianship of water by institutions, local authorities, state government or nations was not the goal. Instead more people need to come together to form a common consensus on how to use, conserve and manage the quality of a river, reservoir, groundwater resource or irrigation system. Sri Lanka's situation is a good example. The country, which boasts of a long history of good water management in the forms of rainwater harvesting, ground water recharge, irrigation, catchment conservation etc, is now facing huge threats to its remaining water resources. Pollution, over-extraction, sea water intrusion, contamination by fertilizers and pesticides and along river banks, dumping all household sewage into rivers has caused water quality to drop drastically over the last 50 years or so. Only 75% have access to (safe) drinking water in the country and less than 20% are serviced by piped water supply. Response to problems become naturally slow and passing the buck is a regular practice among the public sector water managers. One cannot blame them either. There are some 50 different acts of law governing water (and related issues) and over 40 agencies instituting these acts. "We primarily need governments. They are the first and foremost catalysts in this process of change," Catley-Carlson said. "The GWP approach is different from the usual development model because it is driven almost exclusively by local expertise and local institutions." Lanka Jalani constituted the first Sri Lankan effort to bring together water professionals from the government, from NGOs, private consultants, local authorities and such together to implement programmes on two specific river areas in the country- the Mahaoya in the northwest and Malwathuoya in the northcentral. But lack of funds is hampering the progress of these programmes. But as Ms. Catley-Carlson pointed out, countries such as ours must begin to look inward and be more creative about funding programmes for water. As the partnership expands globally, the funding is spread more thinly over partner countries. She observed that the private sector has not been adequately tapped for resources and that forging links with private companies would be a good way to expand the partner base here in Sri Lanka. |
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by Tharuka Dissanaike
