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This article discusses how coherent policy supports ongoing engagement and enables improvements in water governance over time. Our analysis departs from the conclusions and recommendations of a previous published work, OECD Principles on Water Governance in Practice – An Assessment of Existing Frameworks in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and South America. We reference this analysis against three cases and policy practices in Southern Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. We use the regional differences and similarities to discuss how the dimension of 'trust and engagement' can explain the major impediments or achievements towards more effective implementation of 'good' water governance in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the lens of the 12 OECD Principles on Water Governance, this article examines six water resources and water services frameworks in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and South America to understand enhancing and constraining contextual factors. Qualitative and quantitative methods are used to analyze each framework against four criteria: alignment; implementation; on-ground results; and policy impact. Four main target areas are identified for improving water governance: policy coherence; financing; managing trade-offs; and ensuring integrity and transparency by all decision makers and stakeholders. Suggestions are presented to support practical implementation of the principles through better government action and stakeholder involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous commentators have highlighted the criticality of improving water governance to help address current and future water challenges. But whose job is it? In water governance, what should we expect from our governments? What should commercial water users expect from each other? What changes should environmental and social advocates expect as a result of their representations on behalf of stakeholders who have little or no voice? And what should governments expect from the communities they serve? This article briefly examines the rights and responsibilities of various actors in water governance through a selection of key water issues. We suggest that discussions about water are often unbalanced, overemphasizing the rights of large water users and underemphasizing the responsibilities all parties have toward achieving effective and efficient water governance. Among all the responsibilities in water governance, none is more fundamental than our shared responsibility toward intergenerational equity. This shared responsibility can and should be the rallying point around which we gather to improve water decisions at all scales, from local streams to national policies and global agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As water management issues have grown and become more connected, the need to engage civil society and incorporate a wider range of community knowledge in decision-making is increasingly recognised. This paper discusses experiences of three river basins that are part of the UNESCO-IHP Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy programme. In each, water management issues cross different kinds of ‘boundaries’. At the Ord River, north-western Australia, investment in irrigation expansion and social infrastructure is driving the need for more comprehensive water planning and management incorporating a new set of economic, social and ecological values, new knowledge sources, and more collaboration with the neighbouring jurisdiction. In the lower Burdekin, north-eastern Australia, sugar cane irrigators need to reduce their impact on local groundwater, wetlands and adjacent Great Barrier Reef. And at the Motueka River, on New Zealand’s South Island, an 11-year Integrated Catchment Management programme sought solutions to the impacts of upstream land use on downstream water quality. While none of the basins physically crosses an international or national boundary, they can all be considered transboundary waters. These examples show that many of the challenges experienced in relation to international transboundary resources are replicated at other scales and in other ways: across internal borders, through institutional confines, across environmental interfaces, between economic sectors and around a range of social norms. Understanding the various boundaries can help identify a more comprehensive and inclusive suite of stakeholders, enabling their interests and knowledge to be incorporated into decision-making. Sharing knowledge across these boundaries is critical to developing the mutual understanding necessary to support better water management and more equitable benefit-sharing from available water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to water and sanitation are recognized as human rights by the United Nations, reflecting their vital importance to every person's life. At a fundamental level - delivering minimum standards of water services to meet basic human needs - it is a simple equation. People are rights-holders and States are responsible under international law to provide those services. Rights-holders can claim their rights and duty-bearers must guarantee the rights to water and sanitation equally and without discrimination. This paper explores the relationship between the human rights to water and sanitation, the Sustainable Development Goals, water services and the role of water service tariffs in helping or hindering delivery of a broad range of societal objectives, including human rights and sustainability. Two key questions emerge: (i) What are the rights that apply in these circumstances and who is responsible for addressing those rights? (ii) How can the viability of the water service system be maintained without imposing dramatic price increase, and without compromising the social and human right to water in good quality and affordable conditions? In this paper we argue that human rights to water and sanitation, and the tariffs that are applied to them, should not be addressed as technical problems but rather as social and political issues of justice. We conclude that the re-politicisation of water, and of the setting of water tariffs, would help ensure that the responsibilities upon Governments for delivering human rights to water and sanitation are clear. • Access to water and sanitation recognized as human rights. • People are rights-holders and States are responsible under international law to provide those services. • Relationship between human rights to water and sanitation, SDGs, and water services in delivering societal objectives. • Re-politicisation of water and of the setting of water tariffs can help ensure that responsibilities upon Governments are clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]