Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)

Welcome back to Water, Politics and Africa!

After looking at the role of the community as a separate political entity in my last post, I will now cover the concept of “Integrated Water Resource Management,” including its origin and purpose, advantages and disadvantages, and conclude on its relevance in the debate over control of domestic water supply in Africa. 

What is Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)?

As stated in my last post, Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) is roughly defined as “reconciling basic human needs, ensuring access and equity, with economic development and the imperative of ecological integrity, while respecting transboundary commitments” (van der Zaag, 2005) in a “comprehensive and holistic way,” (Savenije & Van der Zaag, 2008) although there is some variation in its exact definition. Also, IWRM is closely linked the ‘Ecosystem Services’ concept popularised by the 2005 UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), with Cook& Spray (2012) comparing the two as “virtually identical.”

IWRM as a concept originated in the 1980s, and in Sub-Saharan Africa gained prominence from the 1990s onwards as “a process that aims to regulate water use between different water demanding sectors.” (Ludwig et al., 2013) It was the result of continued failure to improve water services, lack of protection for the environment, and increasingly overstretched institutional capacity. Frequently cited as a model for IWRM is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), founded in 1933, which “was established with comprehensive natural resource planning as founding principle” that simultaneously considered the demands of different stakeholders and applied “the best available scientific knowledge and methods” (Ludwig et al., 2013). However, while the TVA specifically avoided “political issues and discussions on underlying norms” (ibid), this is not true of modern IWRM given the highly political nature of current water resource management.

The Three Steps to IWRM

According to Van der Zaag, (2005) are three main points IWRM tries to address. First of all, IWRM recognises the shortage of institutional capital, especially with rising population growth in Africa, and the danger this poses to the stability of water resource management. In order to be successful, water management plans must “be pragmatic and practical" and "indicate how the available financial, institutional and human resources will be used,” (ibid) emphasising that already existing management practices should be incorporated as best as possible as to not waste resources on replacing already existing structures.

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Furthermore, IWRM emphasises the facilitation of decision-making processes, where different stakeholders and trade-offs must be considered, relevant knowledge should be provided by experts, and decisions should be reached only with all affected parties involved in the process. A MSc degree managed by WaterNet incorporating these princples trains ‘water managers’ for the purpose of facilitating informed decisions of this kind and is available in universities across the continent.

Finally, IWRM recognises “that water tends to build asymmetrical relationships between people,” where upstream users can impact downstream users but often not the other way around, causing potential conflicts. While when taken literally (on a river scale) this may not apply to domestic supply, if for example water is used for agriculture near a groundwater aquifer that is abstracted for domestic use, any contamination from the agricultural users (through for example manure or pesticides) can have a down-stream effect on the domestic users. IWRM here encourages sharing, coordination and compensation to ensure peaceful water use for all parties involved.

IWRM - An Overfunded Buzzword?

The principles of IWRM have been applied in many water management developments since the 1990s, including some we have covered (bottom-up World Bank investment, the Mazibuko case in Johannesburg). Important organisations here are African water initiatives like WaterNet, the Water Research Fund for Southern Africa (WARFSA), the GlobalWater Partnership as well as the UNESCO Institute for Water Education, all of which sponsor countless projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. Still, in my readings I have found that recent research is increasingly critical of the impact and relevance of IWRM (Cook & Spray, 2012; Golooba-Mutebi, 2012; Liu et al.,2010), with “efforts to shape human perceptions and governance […] thought to have been unsuccessful.” (Cook & Spray, 2012) Firstly, is the aspiration of IWRM to inform and include all relevant stakeholders in decision-making realistic? Cook & Spray (2012) argue “'lay respondents' may lack the insight needed to make scientifically-useful statements” and “decisions founded on misconceptions might exacerbate the negative impacts they associate with value-driven environmental management.”

Since IWRM does not have any sort of ‘official’ definition, there is a degree of confusion and ambiguity surrounding the concept. While some researchers for example believe IWRM demands more emphasis on engineering and physical hydrology (Petit and Baron, 2009), others argue that IWRM is too dominated by these (McDonnell, 2008). Similarly, while some researchers claim IWRM advocates greater involvement of the private sector, others believe it encourages a moving away from neo-liberal ideology. Cook & Spray also comment on “a further group of criticisms that focus on the failure to incorporate IWRM into governance,” that “despite significant expenditures and widespread accolades, there is little tangible evidence in favour of IWRM.” They also cite research on problems like a lack of capacity to implement IWRM, the still-unresolved debate on water as a human right versus water as a service, and ignorance towards the fact that people will take decisions in their personal interest where their wellbeing is at stake. Merrey (2008) goes as far as stating “not only has IWRM outlived its usefulness as a guide to action, clinging to its principles […] may now be retarding progress toward achieving poverty reduction goals.”

Conclusion

To conclude, IWRM is a widely applied concept, however according to numerous critics has been far from a game-changer, and is even seen by some as counterproductive. Can it still represent a solution, where straightforward maket-, government- and community-based strategies cannot? My next post (possibly posts) will centre around an article by Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, who puts in my opinion the most significant fresh perspective on this whole debate, and proposes attention and funds be drastically redirected in ways that I feel have not been discussed significantly by other research or organisations.