Linking Participation, Vulnerability

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Linking Participation, Vulnerability
Sustainable Development

• Timothy Downs, D.Env.
• Professor and Coordinator
• Environmental Science Policy Program
• Department of International Development,
  Community, Environment (IDCE)
• George Perkins Marsh Research Institute
• Clark University, Worcester, Mass. USA.
• AIACC Workshop on Climate Change Vulnerability
  Adaptation
• Trieste June 2002

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1. Participation Overview
Topics covered in overview Marginalization,
poverty reduction strategies, participatory
poverty assessment (PPA), costs/benefits of
participation, levels of participation,
participatory rural appraisal (PRA), stakeholder
analysis, participatory diagnostic study (PDS),
participatory monitoring and evaluation (PME),
understanding resistance to change, stages of
conflict, conflict mitigation.
Major reference IFAD , ANGOC and IIRR (2001).
Enhancing ownership and sustainability A
resource book on participation. International
Fund for Agricultural Development, Asian NGO
Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural
Development, and International Institute of Rural
Reconstruction.
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2. Risk and Policy Analysisunder Uncertainty

• multi-criteria decision making, qualitative and
  quantitative indicators, weighting
• uncertainty, risk analysis and environmental
  impact assessment (EIA)

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3. Case StudyA Participatory Integrated
Capacity Building Approach to Sustainable
Environmental Management and Vulnerability
Mitigation in MexicoWatershed
ContextMarginalized Communities
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Part 1. ContextSustainable Development
Development which meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs. Our
Common Future, 1987
Long on rhetoric..very short on practice. Our
practical experience of sustainability is very
limited. But we do have a good experience of
unsustainable practices to draw on.
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Prerequisites for a Sustainability Culture

• Ethics that value ecological integrity and
  respond to intra- and inter-generational equity
• Productive social interaction facilitates
  win-win and mutual gains collaborations
• Knowledge integration all types are needed
  (anecdotal, indigenous, exogenous)

(Source Downs 2000)
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Agenda 21 Components of Sustainable Development
Compatible Trade Environment Policies
Poverty Reduction Policies
Sustainable Consumption
Management of Population Growth
Improvement of Public Health
Sustainable Development of Settlements
Integrated Decision Making Stakeholder
Participation
Sound Management of Solid Waste and Sewage
Sustainable Development of Energy Resources
indirect link
Sustainability of Water Resources Supply
Sanitation
strong direct link
Marine Coastal Zone Protection Development
Sound Management of Chemicals Toxic Wastes
Atmosphere Protection
Integrated Land Resources Planning Management
Reducing Deforestation / Sustainable Forest
Development
Managing Fragile Ecosystems
Promoting Sustainable Agriculture Rural
Development
Conserving Biodiversity Ecosystem Health
Sound Development of Biotechnology
Agenda 21 was descriptively strong but
operationally weak
(source Downs 2001)
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Global Water Context Allocating and Managing
Water for a Sustainable Future

• Water is the most basic survival and prosperity
  need of organisms, including humans
• Water access is a fundamental determinant of
  human and ecological health
• Water is a primary driver and key factor to
  sustainable human development
• Improving management of water resources is a
  global priority with half of the worlds 6
  billion people population lacking adequate
  sanitation, 1.2 billion without safe water
  supply, and predictions that without improvement
  two of every three people will be under water
  stress by 2025.
• There are ever- stronger calls for integrated
  approaches (knowledge and disciplines),
  participatory approaches (stakeholder interests)
  and capacity building to mitigate these
  imperatives.

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Dublin Principles (International Conference on
Water and the Environment, 1992)

• Fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource,
  essential to sustain life, development and the
  environment.
• Water development and management should be based
  on a participatory approach, involving users,
  planners and policy-makers at all levels.
• Women play a central part in the provision,
  management and safeguarding of water.
• Water has an economic value in all its competing
  uses and should be recognized as an economic
  good.

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An Evolving Method for More Sustainable Water
Management Integrated Watershed Management
(IWM)

• Seeks to combine interests, priorities, and
  disciplines as a multi-stakeholder planning and
  management process for natural resources within
  the watershed ecosystem, centered on water.
• Driven bottom-up by local needs and priorities,
  and top-down by regulatory responsibilities.
• Must be adaptive, and evolving dynamically with
  changing conditions.

Note we view sustainability as a relative
dynamic state to be improved or degraded not an
absolute one to be achieved
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Integrated Water Resource Management has neither
been unambiguously defined nor has the question
of how it is to be implemented been fully
addressed. What has to be integrated and how is
it best done? Can the broad principles of IWRM
be operationalized in practiceand, if so, how?
United Nations Global Water Partnership,
Technical Advisory Committee, 2000.

• Heathcote (1998) Systems Approach
• Develop comprehensive, accurate, thorough, and up
  to date Watershed Inventory
• Problem Definition and Scoping
• Consultation
• Developing Workable Management Options
• Planning and Implementation
• Integrated Watershed Management Principles
  Practice

• Reimold et al. (1998) Ecological Approach
• Stakeholder involvement
• Ecosystem management units
• Coordinated management activities
• Management schedule

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New ThinkingSocio-economic dimensions of
Sustainable Development Practice
Subject to physical and ecological constraints
Subject to economic constraints
Z. Development sector interaction water
resources management and sanitation, soil
resources management, biodiversity resources
management, agricultural production, energy
production, health care, education, industrial
production
Development Sectors
Subject to political will

• X. Socio-political interaction multi-stakeholders
  
• Community, citizens, taxpayers, users,
  customers
• Public providers of goods, services and
  resources
• Private providers of goods services and
  resources
• Academic providers of new knowledge and
  information.

Ethical and practical imperative stimulates XYZ
dynamics
Y. Technical discipline interaction e.g.
doctors and nurses, engineers, architects and
urban planners, social scientists and natural
scientists, lawyers, politicians, teachers,
researchers.
Subject to knowledge, information and
communication constraints
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Any innovative IWM process must be mapped onto a
typical project cycle
1. Pre-planning. Concepts and social organization
2. Strategic Analysis. Needs and baseline
conditions
3. Planning and Design. Management options and
work plans
4. Implementation. Priority actions first then
others follow
5. Operation Maintenance. Performance
monitoring and adaptation to changes
Strong analysis and planning is evident in IWM
but.
Weak implementation and monitoring experience to
date
But some sustainability energy is missingWhat
makes IWM sustainable?
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Capacity building
the sum of the efforts needed to develop,
enhance and utilize the skills of people and
institutions to follow a path of sustainable
development. (UNDP 2001)
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Critical capacity building components necessary
to for sustainable water supply and sanitation

• strengthening political and financial support
• strengthening human resources education,
  training and awareness building
• strengthening information resources monitoring,
  data integration and interpretation for informed
  decision-making
• strengthening regulations and compliance
• strengthening basic infrastructure for water
  supply and sanitation
• strengthening the market for water and sanitation
  products and services (water as an economic good,
  equitably priced, subsidized for the poor).

(Downs 2001)
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Synergistic, interdependent components must
become integrated integrated capacity building
(ICB)
VI. Local enterprise development
V. Infrastructure and technology
IV. Policy making and regulation
III. Information resources
II. Education and awareness-raising
I. Political and financial support
Still something missing.
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Stakeholder ParticipationWho?

• Community/Residential water users
• Community/Industrial water users
• Community/Agricultural water users
• Government regulators (local, state, federal)
• Scientists and engineers
• Providers of products and services
• NGOs (rep. biodiversity interests)

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Participation Why?

• Those directly affected by water problems must
  become owners of those problems and owners of the
  solutions
• Integrated approaches IWM ICB depend on the
  infusion of different perspectives, priorities,
  interests, skills, disciplines

So ICB becomes PICB, P for participatory
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How? Community-based PICB
Federal Government needs, policies
Bottom-up meets top-down dynamics
Government as advisor for, and facilitator of,
PICB
Local needs and policies

• Community-based approaches center of gravity at
  center of needs, interests
• Nexus of local knowledge and existing capacities
• Community-based approaches weather political
  change

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Ways forward in the field

• A PICB pilot project is being developed in Mexico
  to co-manage five priority topics of
  hydo-ecological vulnerability
• Safe water supply
• Wastewater (and solid waste) sanitation
• Water-related health risk mitigation (control
  source and exposure)
• Soil erosion by runoff
• Inefficient irrigation
• Economies of scale and common capacity building
  needs across topics are exploited.
• Rural and peri-urban subsistence communities
  under semi-arid and humid conditions are target
  populations.
• The researchers/practitioners and federal
  government partners are advisors and
  facilitators the community becomes the executive.

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Wrap-up
Combining IWM with PICB has great potential, plus
its logical

• So this new process again reveals the challenges
  are mainly cultural
• Ethical core values and attitudes respectful of
  intra- and inter-generational equity and
  biodiversity conservation
• Participatory culture swapping win-lose for
  win-win choosing the philosophy of
  collaboration and mutual gains over conflict
  negotiation and tradeoffs