Integrated water resources management (IWRM) remains an elusive concept to many people, yet countries are implementing IWRM plans and facing the challenge of what this means on the ground. The international scale of reform suggests not only that a lot of capacity development is required, but also that there is a lot to be gained from rapid and efficient exchanges of experience.

The capacity building activities of Cap-Net depend to a great extent on sharing real-life experience between hundreds of capacity building institutions linked through the Cap-Net network. One significant activity this year is a performance study of river basin organisations (RBOs) that have been set up by many countries to obtain greater equity, efficiency and sustainability of water use. The question is - do they work?

Changing institutions for better management sounds like a good idea, but there are so many vested interests in water that even good ideas are hard to implement. Cap-Net and its partner networks, in collaboration with UNESCO-IHE (the Institute for Water Education) and INBO (International Network of Basin Organizations ), are carrying out case studies in five river basins in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Mexico and Brazil and are conducting an international survey as a basis for identifying and addressing emerging capacity needs.

Our network members are beginning to identify the problems:

‘They have the mandate but no power’ says one . ‘The politicians changed after the RBO was put in place and they don’t support it. ’

‘There are so many water users in the basin, how do we study them all?’ says another reflecting on the scale of the challenge. ‘How do we identify the stakeholders?’ asks another.

Write to info@cap-net.org for more information.

Tags: governance, water resources management