A WinWin Water Management Approach in the Philippines

1
A Win-Win Water Management Approach in the
Philippines

• Towards A Watershed-Based Water Resources
  Management

2
The Myth

• The annual water use accounts for only 12 of
  available supply in the Philippines
• This figure tends to suggest that the need to
  manage water use and conserve water resources is
  not a pressing concern

3
The Reality

• Declining per capita water availability
• The data on aggregate availability indicate only
  the average supply per capita per year, without
  regard to the distribution of available supply
• The Philippine freshwater ecosystem faces severe
  problems of pollution
• The costs of supplying potable water are rising

4
Causes of Water Scarcity

• Water availability limitations
• Depletion of groundwater resources
• Degradation of freshwater sources
• The increasing cost of new water source
  development

5
Addressing Water Scarcity Problem

• Managing water supply
• Managing water demand
• Establishing supportive social, legal, and
  institutional support for effective water
  management system

6
Key Requirements

• A holistic analysis of the water supply situation
• Look at the water issue in an ecosystem
  settingspecifically that of a watershed unit
• Treat water as an economic good
• Allow markets to allocate water to competing
  uses, while recognizing the role of the
  government to protect the interest of targeted
  social groups in society
• Social, legal, and institutional support systems

7
Why a Watershed Approach to Water Resources
Management?

• Environmental impacts of land-use activities,
  water uses and other upland disturbances can
  readily be examined within the watershed context
• The watershed approach has strong economic logic
• Many of the externalities involved with
  alternative land management practices affecting
  water supply and quality are internalized when
  the watershed is managed as a unit
• The watershed provides a framework for analyzing
  the effects of human interactions with the
  environment
• The environmental impacts within the watershed
  operate as a feed back loop for changes in the
  social system

8
Failure to Implement a Watershed Approach

• Watershed management has long been an element of
  natural resources planning and management by the
  DENR in the country
• However, this approach has been largely limited
  to the upper watersheds where the forests lie
• The link between the upper watershed and the
  downstream water resources has not really been
  tackled in the context of a watershed unit

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The main problems in the water governance sector

• The failure to implement the laws governing
  watershed approach
• The absence of institutional mechanisms to
  operationalize said approach
• The lack of appreciation of water as an economic
  goodhence, the inability to allow market-based
  mechanisms to function
• The lack of mechanisms that will integrate water
  and watershed plans and programs of various
  agencies

10
Multiplicity of Water Agencies

• Weaken efforts to manage the water resources and
  their ecosystems and watersheds
• Coordination is not easy since these agencies
  belong to different executive departments
• This is not supportive of a holistic approach to
  water resources management

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Lack of Legal Basis (Prior to the Clean Water Act)

• Different agencies with separately vested powers
  over water and watershed management
• There was no institutional leader that has the
  overbearing power and budget to govern water
  resources management in the country
• Gaps in policies and coordination at the national
  level constrain the full implementation of the
  watershed approach in natural resource management

12
Problems at the Local Level

• Local water districts have no direct jurisdiction
  over the watersheds supporting their water supply
  
• The Local Government Code of 1991 stipulates that
  LGUs should be responsible in protecting
  watersheds.
• But this Code is also not yet put into full
  swingsince, control over the countrys natural
  resources is still taken over by the DENR

13
Some Initial Steps Towards Cooperation

• The DENR has launched several initiatives (e.g.
  ECOGOVERNANCE Project, GOLD project) to train LGU
  in natural resource management
• Some watersheds are now managed by LGU under
  co-management agreements with the DENR
• Certain watersheds are also under the control of
  a number of agencies who are dependent on
  watershed resources such as NAPOCOR and NIA
• The IPRA states that indigenous communities are
  to be administrators of the country's watersheds
  within their domains

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Elements of a Watershed-Based Water Resource
Management

• A biophysical frameworka watershed-based water
  resource management strategy
• A legal-institutional frameworkto provide the
  legal basis and supporting institutions to
  implement the proposed water resource management
  strategy
• An economic frameworkled by economic efficiency
  consideration
• A socio-political frameworkdefined by the need
  to have wide support from local communities and
  political/government units

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Watershed-Based Water Resources Planning

• The current water policy paradigm in the
  Philippines is for a river basin water resource
  planning
• This paradigm is consistent with the watershed
  approach
• But the river basin as a planning unit is too big
  to be manageable
• What is needed is to define a watershed unit that
  a given group of administrative units could
  manage together in a co-management scheme

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Legal and Institutional Framework

• What is needed is an institutional body that will
  govern the watershed unitfor its water resources
  and other environmental services
• Since the watershed transcends administrative
  unitthe need to have watershed council or
  authority seems to be the move in the right
  direction to bring about a truly watershed-based
  water resource planning and implementation

18
Economic Efficiency and Water Policy

• Allow water to flow where their value in use is
  highest
• Charge water price at full cost and define
  clearly the property rights to water use/access
• Increase the efficiency of water use by
  introducing market-based instruments
• Examples of said instruments are water charges,
  water markets, and imposing effluent charges
• These instruments could play an important role in
  stimulating efficient use of water in the country
  

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Local Community Support and Strong Local
Government Commitment

• Obtain wide support from the local community vis
  à vis the local governments and civil societies
  in water management
• The local communities are the frontline consumers
  of environmental good and bad resulting from
  water resource rehabilitation or degradation
• It is in their best interest to be directly
  involved in how this resource is to be managed
• They should be made partners in such an endeavor
  and must received training to enhance their
  capacity to perform this role

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The Clean Water Act of 2004

• Recognizes the participation of LGUs in the
  management and improvement of water quality in
  their respective jurisdictions
• Provides for citizen action in pursuing suits
  against violators of the bills provisions as
  well as in the conduct of information and
  education campaign
• Does not propose for the creation of a new water
  body instead, it assigns the lead function to
  the DENR
• Implementing rules and regulations can be crafted
  to clearly provide for the implementation of a
  watershed-based approach

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Proposed Policy Statements in the IRR

• To adopt an integrated, holistic approach in
  addressing the inherently interrelated issues of
  water supply planning and operation, demand
  management, pollution control, and watershed and
  ground water protection
• To manage water not only as a social good but
  more importantly as an economic good. As such,
  water becomes a commodity that is assessed for
  its scarcity value and whose distribution exists
  in the context of market processes, even as it is
  balanced by the view that water is a basic need

22
Proposed Policy Statements in the IRR

• To adopt a water-pricing policy that covers the
  full economic cost of water production and
  distribution, by taking into account the
  opportunity cost of water where there are
  competing users, and the cost of externalities or
  negative environmental impacts
• To uphold the principles associated with a
  watershed-based approach by considering the
  watershed as the basic unit in managing the water
  resources of the country

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Proposed Administrative Mechanisms to Implement
the Strategies

• Emphasize that this should be operationalized
  along watershed boundaries or river basins
• There should be support for the
  institutionalization of local water bodies such
  as River-basin or Watershed-based Authorities,
  following the LLDA model
• The Governing Boards should be supported by a
  technical secretariat which include an expert in
  Watershed Management

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Proposed Financial Mechanisms

• Use market-based instruments in assessing the
  true value of water that would be levied on
  users, as well as water-related services or
  damages.
• May include raising water tariffs and imposing
  sewerage charges and effluent taxes.
• A socialized system for water-use fees can be
  adopted to balance the market-based value with
  the social nature of water as a public good.
• Set a threshold value below which water is
  provided free of charge, then above which water
  use is progressively valued

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Proposed Financial Mechanisms

• Insure that a big portion of the water use fees
  should be used for Watershed Rehabilitation and
  other restorative mechanisms (e.g. reforestation,
  vegetative and engineering measures to
  control/minimize erosion and siltation) to
  enhance the quality of water discharged from
  natural sources.
• This amount should be clearly itemized, and
  earmarked in the relevant budget allocation
  process

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Proposed Action at the Local Level

• LGUs (Province, City, Municipality, Barangay)
  should also be empowered to establish
  regional/local bodies such as water councils and
  river basin authorities
• These bodies do not necessarily require national
  level legislation but may require inter-LGU
  legislative action, particularly when watersheds
  cover different municipalities/cities from
  different provinces
• These bodies may vary in character, charter, or
  nature. In fact, some of them may even be in the
  nature of cooperatives or NGO networks, or
  para-statals

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Enabling Role of National Bodies

• To support this local level action, the job of
  the DENR should include a function of advocacy
  and capacity building
• To create awareness among local players on the
  possibility for such local institution-building
  programs
• To capacitate them not only to build such
  institutions but also to be trained in the
  technical aspects such as the various
  facets/features of the watershed approach

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Enabling Role of National Bodies

• The DENR should monitor and evaluate these local
  water bodies
• This should not, however, stop local actors from
  collectively making action that would induce
  Congress to strengthen, through legislative
  recognition, the local structures.
• Examples of this would include the mobilization
  moves that led to the creation of the Palawan
  Council for Sustainable Development and the
  current efforts to enact a law that would create
  a Davao River Authority.

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Thank You!

• MARAMING SALAMAT!