Title

Transboundary: Basin Economic Allocation Model

Uganda: Rural water supply: major strides in sector coordination and performance

Ghana: Integrating water security into the national development planning process

Country
Summary

Steadily shrinking for decades due to unsustainable irrigation policies, the Aral Sea is under increasing pressure, making both allocation and availability major challenges. Action has been taken and the Basin Economic Allocation Model has been developed as a long-term decision support system to facilitate putting “value on water use”. This demonstrates that economic models can be applied to assess economic value maximization of different water uses.

Uneven geographical distribution, rapid population growth, industrialization, and environmental degradation, are big challenges to the sustainable development of Uganda’s freshwater resources. However, the policy and institutional framework has advanced over the past two decades in Uganda including the introduction of the Water Act (1995), the Uganda Water Action Plan (1995), and the National Water Policy (1999). Political support matters in achieving success and prioritization of water and poverty was central.

GWP-WA/CWP-Ghana, through Water Climate and Development Programme in Africa (WACDEP), an initiative responding to the Sharm El Sheik Declaration by Heads and Governments of African States, facilitated capacity development on water security and climate resilience for government agencies and Metropolitan Municipal and District Assembly planners in the 2014-2017 National Medium Term Development Planning process. This effort contributed to mainstreaming of water security in the planning landscape in Ghana.

Related IWRM Tools
Keywords
Financing Transboundary cooperation
Lessons Learned

The water allocation can be supported by models that assess economic value maximization of different uses.
Model can explore whether it may be possible to change existing water allocation patterns in ways that enhance overall welfare in the basin.

Model facilitates assessment of the economic impact of changes to water allocation patterns on different groups of water users within the basin, including the riparian states, as well as different sectors such as irrigation and hydropower.

Model allows users to estimate the economic impact of changes to physical infrastructure such as new reservoirs and irrigation efficiency improvements.

Model facilitates application of the IWRM modeling approaches and tools in the government policy making and regional cooperation and contributes to development of resource efficient green growth strategy in the Aral Sea basin.

Political prioritization of water and poverty was central. The depth and longevity of sector reform relies on political support, which can ebb and flow. Sector-level governance reform is unlikely to be successful without broader political reform, which takes time.

Long-term engagement of donors can help build capacity and create relations of trust. A genuine process of mutual learning and knowledge transfer between donor and aid recipients is crucial, as opposed to using relative power to impose ideas and conditions.

Reforms are unlikely to be effective without addressing underlying incentives within recipients and donor agencies. Consultative reform processes or sector ceilings created incentives for active engagement and encouraged sector actors to take responsibility for effective resource allocation within the sector.

Drivers outside of the sector – international actors, political imperatives, alliances with powerful ministries – can influence sector progress. Sector leadership may not be sufficient for strong progress in the absence of wider support at national or even international level.

National ownership of the reform process and a core of technically competent and relatively powerful ‘reform champions’ within government were key factors in driving and sustaining sector progress.

Continuous capacity building and campaigns to provide technical backstopping to highlight the threats to water systems and inform decision making remains important to achieve water security.

The water security cross-cutting theme in the guidelines has undergone two cycles of implementation and the 3rd medium term development planning cycle (2022-2025) begins soon. This presents opportunity to engage the different stakeholders towards strengthening the capacity for mainstreaming water security.

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