Is Normative Integrated Water Resources Management Implementable?

D. J. Merrey a *

a Director of Research, Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), Pretoria, South Africa. Phone: +27 12 845 9100. Fax: +27 12 845 9110. * Email: d.merrey@cgiar.org Key Words: Expedient management; Integrated water resources management; Millennium Development Goals; Problemsheds; River basin management Abstract At the seventh Waternet/WARFSA/GWP-SA Symposium, Lewis Jonker described the “perceived failure of implementing IWRM in South Africa.” This paper starts from Jonker’s observation – which can certainly be defended – and argues that attempts to implement full Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) are doomed to failure and disappointment. The paper therefore offers a more practical ‘expedient’ solution. The paper is based on research done in Tanzania (Ruaha Basin) and South Africa (Olifants Basin) that is further informed by a growing literature critical of the IWRM paradigm as currently understood and practiced. As a guide to actual policies and their implementation in developing countries, IWRM has led to mis-guided priorities and paralysis of development programmes. An alternative approach is one in which basin managers identify priority problem areas, and focus specifically on finding solutions to these problems within an integrated framework, rather than starting with a broad set of principles and trying to implement these. The paper proposes that a shift away from IWRM as a normative concept is now overdue, and argues for realism and action by focusing attention on and prioritizing the critical needs of poor people in Africa. People cannot wait forever.

Sub-theme: Water Resources Management

Type of presentation: Oral

1. Introduction With all respect to our friends at the Global Water Partnership, Waternet, the World Bank, and most of the water management ‘establishment,’ it is time to abandon Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as a guide for implementation. IWRM has become a mantra or religious text, a set of unquestioned assumptions and assertions about how water resources should be developed and managed. It was useful for awhile, because of the incredible damage caused by single-minded single-sector water development in the past—Un-integrated Water Resources Management (UWRM) if you will: building dams and irrigation schemes with no reference to downstream social and ecological impacts for example. But not only has IWRM outlived its usefulness as a

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guide to action, clinging to its principles and debating them in forums like the present one may now be retarding progress toward achieving poverty reduction goals, especially in under-developed sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). As a guide to research and scientific understanding, IWRM represents a systems theory approach and therefore remains valid. But we will not be throwing the entire baby out with the bath water if we throw out IWRM as the biblical guide to investment and action.

Clearly, this is a provocative position, more so in one of the temples of IWRM among many of its high priests. In the following sections I provide arguments and some data to support the premise that a more practical paradigm is needed as a guide to action. The next section briefly and selectively reviews some of the IWRM literature, both pro and con. The third section proposes an action-oriented realistic agenda to break what seems to be a bottleneck caused by over-emphasis on the ‘integrated’ side of water resources management. The paper concludes with a plea for self-critical openness in seeking a way forward.

2. The IWRM Mountain of Literature Some may think that the concept of IWRM is new and modern. This is not entirely the case, as the historical overview by Molle (2006) demonstrates. He shows that taking the river basin as a development or management unit can be traced to ancient times, in both Asia and Europe. Upstream-downstream interconnectedness for example has been recognized as significant for centuries. Molle traces the development of modern ideas of river basin development and management to the early nineteenth century, especially in Europe and North America, and notes that even at that time the driving force was “utopian” in nature: the ideas of mastering nature, making “deserts bloom,” and perhaps less ‘utopian,’ developing colonies as sources of raw materials for colonial manufacturing or reducing floods and famines. These “successful” cases inspired the period of massive infrastructural development roughly from the 1920s to 1970s. From the 1960s, there were increasing concerns about environmental and human impacts of these massive developments, and rising recognition of basins as complex systems. “IWRM” became a dominant paradigm in the 1990s. Molle (2006: 18) suggests that while in many respects it is “old wine in new bottles,” there are important changes too: issues that had been seen as minor in the past became more prominent, for example, pollution, aquifer mining, and the need to involve stakeholders more actively.

IWRM as a statement of shared values Every Waternet/WARFSA symposium has IWRM as the central theme, and several including 2001, 2005, 2006 and this year (2007) have referred to it explicitly in their thematic title. Indeed the 2nd Symposium, held in Cape Town in 2001, had almost the same theme as this year: “Integrated Water Resources Management: Theory, Practice, Cases1;” while the theme of the last Symposium (2006 in Lilongwe) was very similar (“Mainstreaming IWRM in the Development Process”). Of course this is not surprising: the purpose of Waternet is to promote capacity for IWRM; hence its flagship innovative multi-university masters degree program in IWRM. Typing the full term, ‘Integrated

1 The present Symposium theme is “IWRM-From Concept to Practice.”

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Water Resources Management,’ into Google produced an astonishing 22.3 million results (“IWRM” produced “only” 415,000)2. Internationally as well as in regions of the world beyond southern Africa, and nationally in this region, there are numerous workshops and conferences confirming everyone’s commitment and buy-in to the IWRM dogma; the annual Stockholm World Water Week and the World Water Forum held every four years also function to maintain commitment to the IWRM faith. Because the literature is so voluminous, attempting anything like a complete review would be a hopeless exercise. We therefore begin here with the Global Water Partnership (GWP) definition of IWRM and a more recent USAID definition; then briefly discuss a frequently-cited paper by Pieter van der Zaag (2005)—well known among Waternet-ers—to set the scene for a more critical discussion.

IWRM is defined by the Global Water Partnership as a process that promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems (GWP 2000). The World Bank, regional development banks, most bilateral donors, and many national governments have adopted IWRM policies, following similar though sometimes even more prescriptive definitions; for example the World Bank definition prescribes treatment of water as an economic good, reliance on pricing, and decentralized management (World Bank 1993, quoted in Lankford et al. 2007: 8).

USAID offers a more detailed and idealistic (utopian) definition that is worth quoting at length:

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is a participatory planning and implementation process, based on sound science, that brings stakeholders together to determine how to meet society’s long-term needs for water and coastal resources while maintaining essential ecological services and economic benefits. IWRM helps to protect the world’s environment, foster economic growth and sustainable agricultural development, promote democratic participation in governance, and improve human health. Worldwide, water policy and management are beginning to reflect the fundamentally interconnected nature of hydrological resources, and IWRM is emerging as an accepted alternative to the sector-by-sector, top-down management style that has dominated in the past. (http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/water/what_is_iwrm.html).

This definition includes key words like ‘democratic participation,’ ‘science,’ protection of the ‘environment,’ ‘economic growth,’ and ‘human health’ among others—all to be optimized apparently simultaneously (no hint of ‘trade-offs’). IWRM is described as an alternative to the sectoral top-down management of the past. Most IWRM proponents accept the basic concept as articulated by GWP and USAID (e.g., van der Zaag 2005). Of course no one would admit to being against democracy, the environment and human health—the “good”-- and in favor of the opposite—the “evil” of top-down single-sector management. But such definitions are inherently prescriptive in a way that discourages discussion and debate, rather like the holy texts of the major religions. It has the same

2 Both searches highlighted UNESCO-IHE on the top right, suggesting they are especially adept at the search engine game. Search repeated on 27 August 2007, giving somewhat higher numbers than on 22 August 2007.

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function as all recognized religious text, to provide a statement of fundamental and unquestioned faith around which all adherents can rally. In sum, we have fundamental and rarely-if-ever questioned ‘sacred text,’ IWRM high priests, places of worship, and schools for IWRM training the next generation of the priesthood. Any sociologist would recognize that IWRM has become a church where the faithful hear sermons and go forth to make additional converts3.

Van der Zaag’s (2005) paper, presented at the 2004 Waternet/ WARFSA Symposium in Windhoek, asks whether IWRM is a relevant concept or a “buzzword.” He argues that IWRM is highly relevant to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), “reconciling basic human needs, ensuring access and equity, with economic development and the imperative of ecological integrity, while respecting transboundary commitments” (ibid.: 868). He suggests that those trained in IWRM are a “new kind of water manager” who facilitate processes that (apparently invariably if they are sufficiently participatory and transparent) resolve difficult tradeoffs (p.869). If we get the process right, all problems will be solved and everyone will be happy—we will have achieved ‘nirvana.’ He notes that (in this paradigm) it is difficult to explain why large fractions of the rural poor are still without proper water and sanitation services and proposes that the main reason is the usual villain—“lack of political will” and lack of commitment by political elites ((p.870). The solution is of course real participation of stakeholders and transparent processes. It is interesting that he concludes that “IWRM is not a dogmatic concept”! (p.869). He also argues that IWRM is relevant even if “fuzzy and elusive” because it inspires managers and researchers to “think outside of the box,” and also creates mutual respect and cooperation among water professionals (p.870).

Is IWRM really something new, or is it just a rhetorical device for promoting “the same old thing”? Sometimes, it seems to be rhetoric, old wine in new bottles. For example, Muluwafu and Msoso (2005:961), in a paper presented at the same Waternet/WRFSA Symposium, claim that “… IWRM can help achieve the MDGs …” and because of the recent adoption of the principles of IWRM in Malawi’s policy framework, express faith that implementing IWRM can help reduce poverty. IWRM is an “important mechanism for the efficient and effective conservation and management of water resources …” (p.964). They do not define “IWRM” except to characterize it in terms of the four Dublin/Rio Summit principles; and while admitting there are few practical examples, express the view that “it is generally accepted that IWRM is a cost effective approach” to promoting poverty reduction (p.965). They offer little in the way of concrete examples to buttress their statement of faith.

To summarize the argument so far: as a systems framework for explaining and researching the interconnectedness of people, ecosystems, hydrology, and the like in a river basin, IWRM is a very useful if broad and fuzzy intellectual tool. As a framework for educating professionals and laypersons it is also very useful4. IWRM is also a useful way of creating a community of professional researchers and practitioners who have a set

3 At the time of writing this paper I reviewed an early draft of a forthcoming paper by Molle (2007), who describes IWRM as an example of a ”nirvana concept:” a concept that embodies an ideal image of what the world should seek to attain even if the likelihood of success is small. 4 In eastern Massachusetts, USA, where I come from, there are signs along the highway announcing, after the name of a watershed, the words, “communities connected by water.”

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of shared values as one observes in southern Africa (van der Zaag 2005). But many people also perceive IWRM as an important guide or blueprint for implementation in developing countries. However, there is a growing critical literature questioning this faith in IWRM. As is argued in the next sub-section, IWRM fails as a guide to practical action, at least in developing countries.

IWRM as a guide to action

The literature raising questions about IWRM as a guide to action is in an early phase, not surprising given that IWRM as a dominant paradigm is less than two decades old. Perhaps one of the first critiques is an article by Allan (2003), in which he suggested that IWRM will fail unless it takes far more seriously the inherently political nature of water management—a point also emphasized by Swatuk (2005)—and recognizes the limitations of focusing on river basins as the fundamental unit given that economies and societies transcend hydrological boundaries. IWRM in water-scarce contexts is all about changes in allocation of water, an inherently political question, as provision of water to one party invariably entails taking it away from another. Therefore, as expressed in the paper abstract, “integration is political and management is political”: following from this, Allan suggested IWRM be modified to “IWRAM”: Integrated Water Resources Allocation and Management. For many technical water professionals, “integration” refers to hydrological and ecological dimensions and not to the political dimensions. This blind spot lies behind van der Zaag’s (2005: 870) lament about lack of political will and commitment by elites as the main stumbling block to achieving nirvana. But politics is the essence of the problem, not an external factor. Further, the IWRM discourse has been largely developed in the context of the already-“developed” North, but is being pressed upon the South which in his terms has not completed its “hydraulic mission,” i.e., development of its infrastructure (Allan 2003).

Building on this latter insight, one of the major problems with IWRM as a guide to action in developing countries is that many of its principles focus on issues that pre-suppose the existence of water infrastructure. Demand management and cost recovery are central principles of IWRM practice, but they are hardly salient priorities if water resources remain un-developed and large numbers of people have no access to water for domestic or productive uses. How, in any case, does one manage demand and recover costs if the infrastructure to deliver and measure water does not exist? How does one implement ‘polluter pays’ and market-based regulations in the absence of physical and institutional infrastructure? How does one promote participatory stakeholder processes when most do not as yet have a stake, are poorly organized, and are so marginalized they have no political voice?

Nevertheless, in the Ruaha Basin in Tanzania for example, the Basin Office was driven by the expectations of the World Bank to try to administer a water rights system against payment, expecting such an approach to water fees will encourage efficient use of water as well as financing the costs of regulation (Lankford et al. 2007: 9). The outcomes however have been perverse: people paying the $40 minimum water fee taking more water than previously at the expense of downstream users because, they say, they have paid for it (van Koppen et al. 2004)! As currently defined, IWRM focuses attention on second generation issues, i.e., those that arise with water resources development, and as illustrated in this case, leads to counterproductive policies with perverse results.

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Merrey et al. (2005) develop this theme further. They point out that the usual definitions of IWRM, as represented by the GWP concept, point attention to these second-generation issues at the expense of people; they therefore argue for an alternative conceptualization in which promotion of human welfare, especially reduction of poverty and encouragement of better livelihoods and economic growth, are placed at the center of the concept. Such a modification also involves broadening attention from drinking water and sanitation (an MDG goal endorsed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002) to include making water available for productive purposes as well. “Livelihoods-based IWRM” would focus attention on what ought to be the real priorities in SSA. But what one more often sees is considerable attention paid to the admirable goal of ecological conservation at the expense of developing water resources to enable people to use it productively and thereby reduce poverty.

IWRM seems to be understood by many of its adherents as a means to achieve several desirable goals simultaneously: providing safe drinking water, meeting ecological needs, providing water for productive uses, and reducing poverty. The implicit assumption these values can be harmonized simultaneously is a classic “nirvana: concept (Molle 2007; Molle et al. 2007: 607, Box 16.3). Molle et al. (2007) also suggest the IWRM literature usually promotes a technocratic vision of reforms: social scientists will deliver the right institutions, policies, means of ensuring equity and participation of all, without reference to the tremendous difficulties of establishing institutions and the near-impossibility to give politically weak poor people an equal voice to the rich and powerful. While van der Zaag (2005) wishes IWRM to help water professionals “think outside the box”—which indeed it has done for many—it is now becoming a new box confining thinking and action.

Asit Biswas has been a major contributor to the IWRM paradigm. Therefore, there was considerable shock when he published a critical paper asserting there has been little discernible impact of IWRM on practice, which he attributes at least in part to its conceptual vagueness and absence of guidelines to achieve its vision (Biswas 2004). Lankford et al. (2007) point out that his claim of minimal impact is wrong with reference to the North: IWRM underlies the European Water Framework Directive and those of Australia and the USA, and indeed one might add that IWRM is an underlying principle of legal and policy frameworks formally adopted if not fully implemented in developing countries. But its implementation in Europe is made possible by allocating substantial financial and human resources including a significant infrastructure component, and building on infrastructure, policies and institutions that are already in place5. Lankford et al. (2007) therefore suggest Biswas is likely referring to developing countries in his critique—a context in which Biswas certainly has a strong case.

Lankford et al. (2007) note that idealized IWRM denotes a set of principles, usually accompanied by a package of tools and practices, designed to match and accommodate the complex nature of the water management problem; it provides managers a long list of activities to execute, many of them simultaneously. This has led to the promotion of a “comprehensive approach” that seeks to operationalize comprehensive normative IWRM

5 In a classic article, Shah et al. (2005) criticize the uncritical transfer of river basin management principles and institutions from North to South, summarized in the subtitle, “Limits to Leapfrogging.”

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programs. Based on research in Tanzania complemented by literature review, they find that not only does the attempt to implement such a comprehensive approach divert attention away from the most serious issues facing people in the basin and even lead to in appropriate interventions, but it cannot be implemented in any case: it is too complex, and required financial, human and institutional resources far beyond most developing countries’ capacities.

This complexity can be illustrated with a remarkable diagram (Figure 1) on “formalizing IWRM” taken from an official publication of the South African Department of Water and Affairs and Forestry (DWAF), its ‘internal strategic perspective’ on the Olifants (DWAF 2004). This diagram, full of rectangles and circles connected by multiple arrows, attempts to cover all the possible linkages and stakeholder interests, suggesting a complex process of decision-making with little guidance on how to set priorities among a large number of worthy goals. As I have argued in a paper examining the trajectory of development of the Olifants Basin (Merrey 2007:101-102), even a comparatively well-endowed department like South Africa’s DWAF is simply trying to do too much simultaneously; in addition, the legislation giving high priority to the ecological reserve, in a context where much past investment has been to provide water to large-scale commercial users (agriculture, mining, industry) owned by a small minority, and where there is a desire to improve the lives of the poor majority without endangering the revenue streams from these large users, limits their options. DWAF is struggling to implement the full IWRM normative package, leading sometimes to paralysis and indecision in implementing some of its more complex programs. It is no wonder that Lewis Jonker presented a paper at the last Symposium on “the perceived failure of implementing IWRM in South Africa” (Jonker 2006).

To reiterate two key messages: 1) As IWRM is currently conceived by many investment and implementation organizations, it is diverting attention from what ought to be highest priority actions—improving access to reliable water supplies for reducing poverty and improving health and livelihoods; and 2) it is leading to paralysis rather than prioritized actions as water managers struggle to implement the full normative IWRM package in all its complexity.

3. Towards Practical Water Development and Management The hydrological, ecological, social, economic and political interdependencies within river basins, and the complexities of these dependencies, are well established if not always well-understood (Molle et al. 2007). As water resources are developed, these interdependencies become ever more salient and fraught with potential conflict; whereas at earlier stages of river basin development, apparent “win-win” solutions are possible, these become increasingly unlikely at later stages, requiring more complex interventions that usually entail critical trade-offs. In the absence of good knowledge of the physical, hydrological, ecological, and socio-economic interdependencies, effective institutional arrangements, and adequate human and financial resources, solving these conflicts is not easy. IWRM as a systems paradigm for understanding the problems and limitations of single-factor solutions is a critical requirement. However, converting IWRM into a set of normative principles that must be implemented regardless of whether they are

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contextually appropriate is causing serious delays in solving real problems in many SSA river basins.

If IWRM is such an inappropriate guide to action in developing countries, what is to be done? I certainly do not advocate returning to the past, supposed to have been characterized by top-down imposition of single-sector infrastructure with insufficient attention to ecological impacts, competing uses of water, and the like. In this section the starting point is a recent paper by Lankford et al. (2007), of which I am second author. Their critique of IWRM was discussed in the previous section. They argue that the challenge is “to formulate precise interventions to solve existing or foreseen problems in the pursuit of stated goals;” it is not to deploy the comprehensive list of integrated solutions or to partially apply them even if they do not fit the situation (Lankford et al. 2007: 3). This alternative, practical, approach, what they term as an “interpretive, expedient process,” requires a capacity for insightful thinking, identifying practical solutions, and implementing them, while also maintaining a critical perspective on the basic principles of IWRM. The focus is on identifying and prioritizing problems and finding solutions in an integrated perspective, not adoption of principles developed and blessed elsewhere for other contexts. Figure 2 illustrates the difference between normative IWRM and expedient water resources management.

This cycle of expedient water management is illustrated in Figure 3. It moves through four main phases, which translate into:

1. Understanding and characterizing the land, water, people, and institutions of the basin;

2. Establishing goals;

3. Developing a management response to those goals; and

4. Generating activities that lead to and drive the first three steps.

The first two are a ‘vision process’ to seek consensus on understanding of issues and goals. The last stage is a social learning exercise, which can be discussed as part of the others as well: this is an iterative cycle, not linear, and is conceived as having much in common with action research (Lankford et al. 2007: 10-13ff). The application of this cycle is illustrated using data from the Ruaha Basin (ibid.: 13ff). A dimension not analyzed in the Lankford et al. paper, but of critical important in SSA is the need to have a strong developmental dimension in basins facing serious poverty issues as a result of imbalances in water access (Molle et al. 2007: 620).

But this expedient approach does not solve the problem that the river basin as a unit of analysis and management has serious limitations. As Allan (2003), Swatuk (2005), Molle et al. (2007) and others have emphasized, basins themselves are encapsulated within other social, economic and political units whose boundaries cross cut river basins. The boundaries of ethnic and linguistic groups, local and provincial governments, and even countries are not bound by the laws of gravity underlying hydrological boundaries. For example, the Olifants Basin, a large tributary to the Limpopo in southern Africa, crosses three provinces of South Africa, then passes through a national park controlled by a central government institution, into Mozambique. Within the South African provinces, the Olifants passes through various municipalities whose boundaries are again cross

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cutting. And even the officially designated Olifants “water management area” excludes two of its major tributaries (on the argument they join the Olifants in the national park). It will be a nightmare even within South Africa to work out how all these units of government will interface with the planned catchment management agency when it is established. This is made even more problematic by the existence of large national and multi-national firms with mining, agricultural and industrial enterprises in the basin. And of course this does not even begin to address the problem of management of the many internationally shared river basins in southern Africa, including the Olifants (Wolf et al. 2003). Injecting normative IWRM, with its emphasis on balancing and achieving all worthy goals simultaneously, into this political cauldron is a recipe for paralysis.

What is the way forward? In a detailed review of the past three decades of attempting to promote institutional reform in the water (especially irrigation) sector, Merrey et al. (2007) find that the major reason for disappointing results is that there has been a succession of narrowly-focused blueprint solutions promoted and imposed, often with strong donor support. Hence, the irrigation sector in many countries has gone through waves of blaming and therefore training farmers to improve irrigation management; transfer of scheme operation and maintenance responsibility to farmer organizations; promotion of water markets and privatization; and more recently ‘one-size-fits-all’ river basin organizations. Each of these “solutions” has been conceived and implemented with little regard to the broader historical social, economic and political context. Further, none of these waves of reform took sufficient notice of the wider political and economic context: they focused narrowly on changing irrigation institutions without sufficient attention to other agricultural, water, trade and other policies and institutions. The parallel with imposition of IWRM blueprints is clear, and the results are likely to be the same—disappointing at best. As a way out of this impasse, Merrey et al. (2007: 198) propose “a structured, context-specific approach to negotiating and crafting effective institutions and realistic policies that recognize the inherently contentious and political nature of institutional transformation.”

Mollinga et al. (2007) develop and operationalize this further, to advocate a “strategic action” approach to institutional reform that also applies to water resources development and management. The starting points are that water management is inherently political and embedded in a larger institutional context. Therefore one begins with a concrete problem setting, and mapping what is necessary and possible and who are the actors involved. This is conceived as mapping any water management problem from a ‘problemshed’ rather than a watershed perspective, i.e., identifying empirically what are the boundaries of a problem and not imposing a hydrological boundary. Interested parties to a problem can be mapped and analyzed as a network; these will invariably include institutions and parties not contained within a specific basin or hydrological boundary, such as the mining firms in the Olifants. Based on this analysis, water managers can create alliances around common goals, and plan and negotiate to arrive at an implementation plan.

For example, if the problem is low returns on agricultural water (i.e., low water productivity measured in dollar terms) in a context of increasing water scarcity, solving this problem will involved multiple actors including many from outside the river basin boundaries: developing markets for higher value crops, or introducing more efficient

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irrigation technologies, and possibly reducing the number of farms. Such a process is unlikely to be harmonious and lead to a win-win outcome, but it can be managed to achieve positive results while minimizing and compensating for the negatives. If on the other hand, the problem is that large numbers of people are poor with no access to water, and providing such access could be part of the solution to their escaping poverty, then the focus will clearly be on what are the feasible options for making water available, and who are the parties one needs to mobilize (e.g., financiers, consultants, construction firms, etc.). Following such an approach, it is unlikely that a water manager will focus on trying to control demand for water by charging fixed fees to anyone who is taking water from the river just because this is in an IWRM protocol.

These “problemshed” and “expedient management” approaches clearly converge. The point is to focus on specific issues and problems, prioritize them, identify options for solving the highest-priority problems, identify the constellation of interested parties, actors and institutions, and negotiate a way forward. IWRM provides a systems context to understand the likely implications of specific solutions, but it no longer constitutes a blueprint or objective in itself.

4. Conclusion This paper has argued for discarding IWRM as a religious text or blueprint of objectives to be achieved simultaneously and harmoniously. But it has not advocated abandoning IWRM. IWRM continues to be shorthand for a valid model emphasizing the systematic interconnectedness within river basins. However, water managers need to understand more clearly both that there are additional but no less critical connections beyond the basin, and that the connections are not only hydrological and ecological but also—indeed primarily—political. Implementing an adaptive, expedient ‘problemshed’ approach to water management requires critical thinkers with good technical and political competence and effective negotiating skills—precisely the kind of “new” water manager van der Zaag (2005) suggests is being created through IWRM programs like Waternet. This suggests that rather than teaching IWRM as a religious text, we need to work harder to encourage reflexivity and self-criticism among water management professionals.

IWRM continues to be treated by many as some kind of holy grail, a state of nirvana that can be implemented and achieved if only stakeholders hold sufficient dialogues and if only there is more political will and commitment by elites. IWRM is shorthand for a model that helps us understand relationships and consequences of actions within one sector. But normative IWRM is not a practical guide to action and as a package or concept is not implementable.

References Allan, T. 2003. IWRM/IWRAM: A New Sanctioned Discourse? SOAS Water Issues

Study Group Occasional Paper 50. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Biswas, A. K. 2004. Integrated Water Resources Management: A Reassessment. Water International 29(2): 248-256.

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Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF). 2004. Olifants Water Management Area: Internal Strategic Perspective. Prepared by GMKS, Tlou and Matji on behalf of the Directorate, Water Resources Planning. DWAF Report No. P WMA 04/000/00/0304. Pretoria: DWAF.

Global Water Partnership (GWP). (2000). Integrated Water Resources Management. GWP Technical Committee Background Paper 4. Stockholm: GWP.

Jonker, L. 2006. Integrated Water Resources Management: The Theory-praxis-nexus. Paper presented at the 7th WaterNet / WARFSA / GWP-SA Symposium, Lilongwe, Malawi, 1-3 November 2006.

Lankford, B., D. J. Merrey, J. Cour, and N. Hepworth. 2007. From Integrated to Expedient: An Adaptive Framework for River Basin Management in Developing Countries. IWMI Research Report No. 110. Colombo: IWMI.

Merrey, D. J., Drechsel, P., Penning de Vries, P., and H. Sally. 2005. Integrating ‘Livelihoods’ into Integrated Water Resources Management: Taking the Integration Paradigm to its Logical Next Step for Developing Countries. Regional and Environmental Change 5:197-204.

Merrey, D.J. 2007. Balancing Equity, Productivity and Sustainability in a Water-Scarce River Basin: The Case of the Olifants River Basin in South Africa. Final Draft submitted to Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture and IWMI. Unpublished.

Merrey, D. J., Meinzen-Dick, R., Molinga, P., and Karar, E. 2007. Policy and Institutional Reform: The Art of the Possible. Chapter 5 in: D. Molden, ed., Water for Food, Water for Life: The Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. Earthscan, UK. Pp.193-232.

Molle, F. 2006. Planning and Managing Water Resources at the River-Basin Level: Emergence and Evolution of a Concept. Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture Research Report 16. Colombo: IWMI.

Molle, F., P. Wester, and P. Hirsch. 2007. River Basin Development and Management. Chapter 16 in: D. Molden, ed. 2007. Water for Food, Water for Life: The Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. Earthscan, UK. Pp. 585-625.

Molle, F. 2007. Sacred Cows, Storylines, and Nirvana Concepts: Insights from the Water Sector. Draft Article for Development and Change. Unpublished.

Mollinga, P.P., R.S. Meinzen-Dick, and D.J. Merrey. 2007 (forthcoming). Politics, Plurality and Problemsheds: A Strategic Action Approach for Agricultural Water Resources Management Reform. Accepted for publication, Development Policy Review, 2007.

Mulwafu, W.O., and H. K. Msosa. 2005. IWRM and Poverty Reduction in Malawi: A socio-economic Analysis. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 30:961-967.

Shah, T., I. Makin, and R. Sakthivadivel. 2005. Limits to Leapfrogging: Issues in Transposing Successful River Basin Management Institutions in the Developing

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World. In: M. Svendsen, ed., Irrigation and River Basin Management: Options for Governance and Institutions. Wallingford, UK; and Colombo, Sri Lanka: CABI; IWMI.

Swatuck, L.A. 2005. Political challenges to implementing IWRM in Southern Africa. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 30: 872–880.

Van der Zaag, P. 2005. Integrated Water Resources Management: Relevantg Concept or Irrelevan Buzzword: A Capacity Building and Research Agenda for Southern Africa. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 30:867-871.

Van Koppen, B., C. Sokile, N. Hatibu, B. Lankford, H. Mahoo, and P.Z. Yanda. 2004. Formal Water Rights in Rural Tanzania: Deepening the Dichotomy? IWMI Working Paper 71. Colombo, Sri Lanka: IWMI.

Wolf, A.T., S.B. Yoffe, and M. Giordano. 2003. International Waters: Identifying Basins at Risk. Water Policy 5: 29-60.

Source: DWAF 2004: 7, Figure 1.2. Figure 1. Diagram showing DWAF’s IWRM Approach.

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Comprehensive national IWRM strategy ‘Idealized’ IWRM

Operationalization Problem identification

Attempted application to the river basin

Recursive application to the river basin

Partial ‘ideal’ IWRM operational programs

Expedient WRM operational programs

Dublin Principles

‘Principled’ National Water Policy

Adaptive WRM strategy ‘Interpreted IWRM’

Dublin Principles & IWRM

‘Enabling’ National Water Policy

The IWRM continuum The adaptive WRM cycle

Source: Lankford et al. 2007: 2, Figure 1 Figure 2. The deployment of IWRM policy and operations – a partial ideal or expedient?

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Figure 3. Adaptive Cycle of Expedient Water Management Source: Lankford et al. 2007: 11, Figure 5.

Need for a goal(s)

Principles of allocation

Allocation scenarios

Consensus Goals

Expedient goal making

Causation and change

Context

Allocation options

Scope & solvability 1)

Pre

curs

or u

nder

stan

ding

2)

Set

ting

expe

dien

t goa

ls

Time horizons

Recurrent management

Allocation I & L framework

Allocation devices

River flow targets

Revisit goal & stages

3) W

ater

man

agem

ent r

espo

nse

Water resources

assessment 4)

Wat

er m

anag

emen

t soc

ial

lear

ning

Note: I & L refers to Institutional and Legal framework.

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