Institutionalised

Our team recently met with our new interns for the year, which was exciting.  It was exciting to start our second year at SOAS and to have our second round of interns from the Department for Development Studies.  We went through the usual induction procedures and told them about our project, then spoke a little about our individual interests and how we all got into water and development.

When our interns were telling us about their interests, I realised that I was unable to escape my own framework for conceptualising development problems.  One intern was interested in the erosion of state sovereignty as a result of globalisation and another was interested in structural violence in natural resources management and issues of (in)equity within systems.  I immediately realised that both interns were interested in the roles of different institutions in international development, and they are lucky that Dr Cleaver, the project Director, specialises in institutions.  Then, I suddenly remembered that a few weeks back I was thinking of the dissertation of our former scholarship student, who wrote on the role of institutions in response to the 2008 cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe.  Then it became evident that I was consumed by institutions and their role in water governance and governance more widely; that it is one of the main lenses through which I see development problems.

When I discuss the role of institutions, I am using a broader sense of the word, which encompasses both formal and informal institutions.  Having studied gender at a post-graduate degree, and having focused on gender and land rights in my master's dissertation, I have a foundation for beginning to explore debates on the interface between formal institutions (eg water committees) and social institutions (eg gender, class, race, sexuality).  Participation in local, national, and international water events, as well as discussions with the Water for Africa Research project team has also influenced my perspective on institutions for water and development.  Dr Cleaver also has some great publications on social institutions and natural resource management (eg 2002 "Reinventing Insitutions: Bricolage and Social Embeddedness of Natural Resource Management"; 1998 "Moral Ecological Rationality"), which have helped me to understand how a range of social factors play a role in water governance.

In development there is also a really big emphasis on "getting institutions right" which is more along the lines of Ostrom's work.  This body of work focuses on formal institutions, standardisation of systems, issues of rights, and other related things.  For example it has become a part of standard, mainstream policy to decentralise water supply systems, as well as systems for good water governance.  These decentralised institutions are thought to promote community management, local participation in decision making, and help to empower marginalised communities by giving them access to a space to have a voice.  Although there are some major limits to a focus primarily on formalised institutions, I can also see why they are important.

So between all the recent and ongoing debates I have with myself on the role of institutions, I realised that I have been "institutionalised" into institutional approaches to development.  I find it difficult to escape many times.  It is hard to ignore the role that institutions play in governance and governmentality.  They are so pervasive, so powerful.  I wonder,  is everything is about institutions?  How can I be more inclusive in my analysis of water and development?  Within the scope of development certainly there is a large interest in institutions, but how can we enable them to work together?  How are people able, or unable, to challenge the range of institutions that exist?  How can we improve these institutions to foster the equity of livelihoods?

International Symposium on Rural Water Services

International Symposium on Rural Water Services

“Providing Sustainable Water Services at Scale”

Kampala, Uganda - 13th and 14th April, 2010

The Thematic Group on Scaling Up Rural Water Services is organising an international symposium on providing sustainable rural water services at scale in collaboration with the Ministry of Water and Environment of the Government of Uganda.

The main aims of the symposium are to bring together research findings and lessons learned on how to improve sustainable rural water services at scale, to debate and analyse these lessons and to identify common principles to improve policy and practice.

The target audience of the symposium includes practitioners and policy makers from governments, donor organisations and local and international NGOs. 

The format for the two-day symposium will allow participants to share and learn from global experiences in the form of key note presentations, country case studies and interactive work-sessions. It is envisaged that this two-day symposium will provide inputs for the development of a general framework of principles for sustainable rural water services. Topics for debate will include:

·         What are the real costs of sustainability and who pays for them?
·         How can the role of the private sector in rural water be encouraged?
·         Is there a future for the community management model?
·         How can self-supply of services be encouraged?
·         What are the mechanisms to encourage harmonisation and alignment at intermediate (local government) level?
·         What are the most appropriate funding flows – for national governments, the private sector and donors – for supporting more sustainable service delivery?
·         How can decentralisation be strengthened in order to provide sustainable services at scale?

Call for Participation

There will be no open call for papers, but instead participants who have specific experience are encouraged to submit inputs in the form of short presentations with a two-page summary; guidance will be provided. Participants are encouraged to share their work and ideas at the symposium through other media such as film, photo essays, animated presentations or other methods.  All inputs will be reviewed by a committee created for the event.  More details on the format of the symposium, guidelines for submission of presentations and for registration will follow in the second announcement.

The symposium is supported within the framework of the Triple-S (Sustainable Services at Scale) initiative being managed by the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. 

Water Governance in a Falling Metropolis

One of the non-development, but still nerdy, blogs I follow is Ecoconomics, which discusses economic issues within the context of all our favourite comic book heroes and villains.  As someone who has not been trained in economics, following this blog is a fun way to learn about basic econ theory.

Last week I read a post about water in Metropolis, the home of superman.  To sum up the water and sanitation system in Metropolis is destroyed and its citizens are extremely dehydrated, lack adequate sewerage, and are paying ridiculous amounts of money for water sold to them by 'thugs'.  The entry poster, ShadowBanker, thinks that the comic exaggerates the level of suffering because there would be decent humanitarian response from the government and the private sector, thus ensuring the security of the citizens of Metropolis.

I can see what ShadowBanker is saying....in theory a city with resources that Metropolis has should deal relatively well with disasters.  However if we can compare this to a real life example such as New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we can see that the depiction of post-attack Metropolis in the comics might actually be more accurate than what ShadowBanker imagines.  Granted New Orleans is not one of the richest cities in the world, but the US government is wealthy and did not do enough for the people of New Orleans with respect to water and sanitation.  This brings me back to the role of the government in service provision.  Governments (in the global north and south) are key in providing basic infrastructure for everyday use, but also in responding to natural or evil-villain-made disasters.  Also when looking at New Orleans we can see how politics and social issues impacted humanitarian response, but the ShadowBanker's analysis of what happened in Metropolis is presented in an apolitical or asocietal manner.  In the DC Universe, cities, states, and governments may act apolitically or altruistically, but water governance in the north and south cannot be seen as separated from its political, historical, cultural context.

Another interesting issue brought up in the post is that of informal providers.  ShadowBanker talks about 'thugs' supplying water to the city's people for high prices, but small vendors are a very important part of water supply systems.  The Asian Development Bank found that in some parts of Manila up to 50% of people rely on informal vendors for water, which means these vendors are filling a massive gap in service provision.  Water is often sold at higher prices, and this is a big problem when trying to service the poor, but in some places there may not be another option.  Instead of demonising these vendors, perhaps it would be better to discuss the issue of regulation.

Despite my qualms with this Ecocomics post, it raises some good issues with regards to water governance.

Until next time superfans...