Event Description
Water governance comprises complex nested and interlocked sets of decisions about water.  Poor governance constrains economic growth, access to water and sanitation services, and ecosystem protection. However, good governance in water management is difficult to define and harder to measure. Still, there is an urgent need for a water governance transformation in many parts of the world, keeping in mind that there is no universal solution to this demanding challenge. In striving to improve the quality of water governance, decision makers deal with increasingly complex socio-political frameworks and require a way of gauging their progress in improving water governance. Hence the need of an effective system for regularly measuring, assessing, and benchmarking water governance performance at the country level.

This seminar explores the essence of water governance and ways of measuring it. The first part of the seminar will look at water governance from a structural/functional perspective, describing essential functions and decision making processes, and exploring what constitutes good water governance. The second part of the seminar will focus on how theory can be translated into action, first describing different initiatives and analysing gaps, and then presenting the USAID-sponsored MENA Regional Water Governance Benchmarking Project with preliminary results.

Programme

Chair: Mr. Eric Viala, USAID - Office of Middle East Programs (USAID-OMEP), Egypt
Rapporteur: Dr. Lucia De Stefano, International Resources Group (IRG), Spain