Entries For: April 2007

What is Governance? There are many different definitions and many different understandings of the concept.  Some have even been writing dictionaries on governance…

The terms governance and good governance form almost part of our daily vocabulary. Governance describes the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented or not implemented. Public institutions conduct public affairs, manage public resources, and guarantee the realization of human rights. Good governance defines an ideal which is difficult to achieve in its totality. However, to ensure sustainable human development, actions must be taken to work towards this ideal. Major donors and international financial institutions, like the IMF or World Bank, are increasingly basing their aid and loans on the condition that reforms ensuring good governance are undertaken.

The GEF like many other donors is interested in long-term sustainability beyond GEF funding. Therefore, it strives to establish new or strength existing governance mechanisms to allow basins and regions to govern themselves beyond the project life. The challenge under the GEF is that the areas being tackled involve many countries forming part of a multi-country drainage basin or else a Large Marine Ecosystem.

As Task Manager within UNEP for IW projects in Latin America, I am specifically interested in sharing views and experience in what works for what reason and what certainly does not work and for what reasons.  In other words, recognizing that there is no one size fits all and that it is not an issue of recipe, reviewing key “ingredients” to make it work.

Hence, how did you succeed to ensure proper anchoring of your multi-country project into the various national policies?  What is your experience in establishing inter-ministerial committees, or inter-institutional mechanisms?  How did your region go about forming a basin Committee or a Commission etc? What mechanism did your project use to ensure government and citizen commitment into the joint management of water resources?