Governments are scrambling to mitigate a range of water crises.

These include:

• inequitable access to affordable, safe water for drinking and sanitation
• water pollution, which causes severe environmental degradation
• water over-extraction, from both surface and groundwater
• inadequate protection of freshwater ecosystems from the impact of economic development.

Reviewing policy responses to global water crises, we found that the causes of these crises have been largely misidentified, resulting in important gaps in public policy responses.

 

The limits of putting growth first

Reviewing global responses to water crises, we found two dominant worldviews among policymakers. The first, Economic Growth, treats the increase in per capita GDP over time as water policy’s number one priority. The second, Green Growth, recognises that environmental conservation is necessary, but maintains an emphasis on economic growth.

Used as a policy framing, Economic Growth uses markets and capital accumulation to support efficiency gains and infrastructure-led economic development. According to this thinking, water crises are primarily overcome by targeted public and private investments in water, infrastructure and services. This has been helpful, especially in improving urban water accessibility, but hasn’t been enough.

Green Growth, on the other hand, prioritises overcoming market failures. Such policies might redesign subsidies to reduce pollution or look to improve market-based water pricing mechanisms.

While both Green and Economic Growth use market incentives to conserve water, this is not enough to overcome institutionally inadequate water governance.

 

Going Beyond Growth

A third framing for the way forward is Beyond Growth. A Beyond Growth agenda builds upon the best aspects of a Green Growth framing but also seeks to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation. It’s more targeted and prioritises water security for the most disadvantaged.

Beyond Growth policies aim to:

• overcome policy capture and inertia with community participation
• foster place-based and justice-principled decision-making
• Build institutional change on principles of justice and equity, not economic growth.

 

Our reading of the evidence is that only Beyond Growth responses will make it possible to achieve the targets set out in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 by 2030, which commits governments to providing ‘Safe water for all’.

It may also be the only way to achieve the targets of SDG 1 (‘End Poverty’) and SDG 2 (‘End Hunger’) by that time.

Preventing policy problems

One of the underlying issues in global water governance is a failure to actively avoid policy inertia and policy capture.

Policy inertia happens when policymaking fails to adapt to new circumstances and is perpetuated by institutionally inadequate governance.

Policy capture is the reallocation of water and infrastructure to a privileged few at the expense of the many, achieved through corrupt practices.

Policy capture also occurs when donations, lobbying and a revolving door of decision-makers jumping between the public and private sectors constrains policy thinking. Typically, these practices are pernicious, but legal. Policy capture privileges those with the most access and influence and shrinks communities of knowledge. This limits the range of practices that are considered acceptable to decision-makers.

Both policy capture and inertia can be mitigated through strong civil participation, competent public administration and a robust legal system that operates in the public interest. Transparency about implementation failures is especially effective at improving policy responsiveness, as it can increase the accountability of decision-makers.

Institutional arrangements that harmonise top-down innovation with bottom-up change are critical, especially for finding and addressing information gaps and incompatible incentives. One example is ‘integrated regional catchment management’, where government sees their role as coordinating a group of non-government actors to manage water ecosystems collaboratively.

 

Business as usual won’t be enough

Governments cannot get the strategic thinking and effective responses we need to address the world’s water crisis without:

• being explicit about who has power and influence over water, and who is listened to by key decision-makers and who isn’t
• being transparent about the knowledge and data that has either informed – or been excluded from – decision-making
• Opening up participation in the decision-making processes around who gets what water, when, and which problems and solutions are considered,
• understanding and communicating the ways that bio-physical and socioeconomic water systems are connected, in a way that is specific to local circumstances.

 

Beyond Growth water reform actions aren’t yet mainstream, but they have seen successes, including:

• In Singapore, they have helped to deliver safe drinking water and sanitation to its residents and reducing water pollution
• in Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, where participatory processes in smallholder irrigation schemes have empowered communities to better manage their local water resources
• In 17 rural African countries, supporting safe drinking water services with results-based contracts
• In Ecuador’s Ambato River Basin, by fostering water management partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents
• In Costa Rica, where smartphone applications now regularly report issues with water services to community water management committees and households.

 

These success stories, coupled with the failure of a ‘business as usual’ approach is convincing. Australia too must go Beyond Growth.

Only a genuinely democratic, place-based approach can reduce environmental degradation, increase well-being, tackle water insecurity, and grow system resilience at scale. A Beyond Growth agenda can deliver genuine water governance that is of, by, and for the people. Given the magnitude of the world’s challenges, there is no time to waste.

*Full author list is available here.