７７：IWRM計画だけでは進まない！！

ヘルシンキ工科大学水研究所の水と開発に関わる論文集は結構面白い。IWRM実践の障害についても事例をベースに普遍的な事項をまとめている。IWRMを否定する側でないが、大変参考になる。

下記抜粋。セネガル川とメコン川の比較研究から９つの問題点を議論している。

1. Regulation vs. development

These two functions have too often been confused, and one agency has at the same time
issued permits and regulations and been active e.g. in dam construction, thus judging its own operation. Self-regulationis ultimately an aspect that should be avoided by all means, and societies are becoming more and more sensitive to this issue.

2. Institutions are a grand mix

The institutional set-up is a complicated mix of various international, national, governmental and non-governmental, commercial or subsistence-related, and many other agencies and stakeholders. The stakes and ambitions within a river basin do not originate alone from the basin itself.

3. Weak vertical (between local, national and international levels) and horizontal (between sectors) coordination

It seems to be common that the international basin agencies do not work fluently in accord with national authorities. In West Africa as well as in the Mekong countries, water management tasks have been delegated and split among a number of government
departments influencing negatively the implementation of the IWRM. The basin agencies usually stand in a difficult position, trying to fit their own ambitions to those of the many national governments, donor agencies and non-governmentalorganizations.

4. Unrealistic plans

The MRC is infamous for its ambitious plans over decades to develop hydropower,
navigation, irrigated agriculture and other economic activities in the basin with
full force. However, wars, institutional incapabilities, shortage of resources and lately massive opposition by emerging civil society organizations have stood against these and they have mainly failed. In West Africa, the numerous IWRM planning projects have failed for similar reasons. The plans have partly been unrealistic in terms of the institutional capacity of the nations, of their suitability to other existing plans, and of their acceptability by different stakeholders. MRC’s
present strategy and the subsequent actions are interesting in this respect, and they deservea careful process of scrutiny among the West African water professionals.

5. Lack of communication and participation

In both West Africa and Southeast Asia, the development of open communication and
public participation has had a cumbersome starting point. The style of the MRC is
evolving towards open communication, social considerations and participatory approaches are starting to be more and more common in the investigations leading to plans. Internet is already used in many ways and much development work is under way. In this respect, the West African organizations have still much to learn.

6. Strategic philosophy vs. tactical technique

It has become clear that IWRM is a far more strategic, even philosophic issue than often recognised. One example is the MRC's ongoing Basin Development Plan process,
which is the third of its kind in the history. The first two ones both never got implemented. Both of them shared the typical problem of such plans: they were not rooted into the reality of the societies and the cultures of the riparian countries. River basins are the cradles of the mankind, and each basin has its own ages-old and recent history. The former one is a potpourri of cultural, ethnic, political and other factors and the latter one includes institutional arrangements and governance
characteristics. They all influence the implementation of IWRM. The water sector
should build its own efforts on these realities (see also Mehtonen et al. 2008).

7. Mainstreaming IWRM into development

Without the common recognition and ownership of the IWRM concepts in the villages, at the local governance, at the government level and in the international setting, IWRM remains a theoretical concept with not much sound scientific background from real-life development projects and not much sustainable impact on the environment,
society and economy. It is important to see IWRM in the broad, cross-cutting framework of other development issues.

8. Water sector is not alone

In the IWRM recommendations, the water sector is typically seen as too disconnected
from other sectors. The water sector itself is a many-dimensional mosaic of activities, with no clear disciplinary boundaries (cf. Mohile, 2005; Rahaman, 2005). Energy, agriculture, environment, health etc. sectors are part of the water sector in the Mekong Basin, but they are also sectors by their own right, and parts of other sectors. We should of course try to bring these all together, but recognize too that many other sectors are suffering with similar integration challenges—in some of them water being an important component.

9. National borders cross many basins

It is important to recognize that IWRM requires massive international efforts due to
the transboundary character of the problems, accorded typically with complicated and
diffi cult political settings. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation entitled that all major river basins of the world should have an IWRM and water effi ciency plan by the end of 2005. The Mekong and Senegal experiences show that approaching the myriad of problems and challenges of the world’s major river basins with such a one-shot plan are challenging in many ways (Mehtonen et al., 2008).

いつもながらIWRMの欠点や障害を挙げているが、成功例ばかり探していると実践は不可能であるのではないかという実務家の予感からである。