IWRM challenges in developing countries: lessons from India and elsewhere

International Water Management Institute (iwmi)

No 113018, IWMI Water Policy Briefings from International Water Management Institute

Abstract: Developing countries like India are actively being encouraged to move from the traditional supply-side orientation towards proactive demand management under the broad framework of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is a sound philosophy which is hard to disagree with. However, in developing countries, what usually gets passed-off in the name of IWRM at the operational level takes a rather narrow view of the philosophy and has largely tended to include a blue-print package including: [1] A national water policy; [2] A water law and regulatory framework; [3] Recognition of River Basin as the appropriate unit of water and land resources planning and management; [4] Treating water as an economic good; and [5] Participatory water resource management. Several of these mark a significant shift from current paradigms and making this transition is proving to be difficult. Drafting new water laws is easy; enforcing them is not. Renaming regional water departments as basin organizations is easy; but managing water resources at basin level is not. Declaring water an economic good is simple; but using price mechanisms to direct water to high-value uses is proving complex. As a consequence, the so-called IWRM initiatives in developing country contexts have proved to be ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.

Keywords: Farm Management; Institutional and Behavioral Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 7p.
Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/113018/files/IWPB24.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iwmwpb:113018

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.113018

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IWMI Water Policy Briefings from International Water Management Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().