Strategic Cooperation2006 - 4th World Water Forum: Big Is No Longer Beautiful in Global Water Policy (water management) |
From March 16th till 22th 2006, the Fourth World Water Forum was held in Mexico City. Both ENDS participated in the formal Forum as well as in the alternative World Water Forum, organized by Coalición de Organizaciones Mexicanas por el Derecho al Agua (COMDA). IRN and Both ENDS challenged Forum participants to recognize local action: Big Is No Longer Beautiful in Global Water Policy. For the original Dutch version of this article click here Essential links: - 4th World Water Forum - COMDA - International Rivers Network (IRN) Ríos y Humedales: Un Enfoque Negociado Rivers and Wetlands: A Negotiated Approach On saturday March 18th, during the 4th World Water Forum, Both ENDS, AEDES (Peru) and ECOA (Brazil) organised the session 'Rivers and Wetlands: A Negotiated Approach' in which more than 100 people participated. Jorge Mora Portuguez of Freshwater Action Network Central America (FANCA) moderated the session. Key panelists were Rafaela Nicola (ECOA), Andrés Misi of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Glenn Gordon representing the World Bank, Mustafa Alam representing the Bangladesh research institute CEGIS, José Guevara (AEDES), Kenneth Rivera, National Director of Water Resources (Honduras), and Aboubacry Mbodj of CODESEN (Senegal). The session was based on presentations of successful, locally initiated water management approaches in Peru, Senegal and Brazil. After an in-depth discussion of these experiences and the broader context of water-related policy processes, the panel concluded that there is a clear need to establish bottom-up negotiation processes, but that appropriate legislative frameworks are not yet in place for countries and policy makers to implement such processes. The three presentations demonstrated how communities develop sustainable water management strategies on the basis of real needs, people's capacities and skills, and ecosystem characteristics. Presenters emphasised the importance of NGO as much needed intermediaries between these local actors and their Governments. Panellists and presenters agreed that processes that do not include local actors and intermediary organisations as part of the decision making process are guaranteed to fail. The experiences from Brazil, Peru and Senegal clearly demonstrated that bottom-up negotiation processes that take into account local knowledge address challenges of poverty reduction and ecosystem protection more effectively. For more information on this session please refer to the session report Rivers and Wetlands: A Negotiated Approach. For more information on the NGO sessions during the 4th World Water Forum click here For more information on the Negotiated Approach click here Gender and Water Management Parallel to the Forum, Both ENDS, IWMI CA, and the Gender and Water Alliance, discussed and distributed a draft minimum agenda gender and water management. The minimum agenda provided practical recommendations to practitioners, policy makers and researchers working in the field of water and agriculture to effectively mainstream gender. agenda english agenda espagnol agenda français Participants of the Forum shared their expertise, views and suggestions and filled out a short questionnaire and participated in open discussion in the Women's Coalition stand on March 19th, 20th anf 21st. questionnaire english - questionnaire espagnol - questionnaire français For more information please refer to: Gender mainstreaming in Water Management or Transversalización del enfoque de género en la gestión del agua |