African Water Development Report 2006 - United Nations Economic ...

Box 11.3Emerging Principles Underlying Management of International Water Resources- Sovereignty principle: Each nation has the right to develop its own policies, laws and institutions and their ownstrategies for natural resources development and utilization- Trans-boundary principle: Upstream water users have a responsibility towards downstream water users, andvice-versa; this principle is in a sense the extension of the equity and precautionary principles across nationalborders- Equity principle: All people have basic rights of access to resources for their survival and development; no groupsin society should be put at a serious disadvantage in this respect- Intergenerational principle: Future generations should not be deprived from access to an adequate resource base,although the resource base itself may change in composition (e.g., knowledge, technology, infrastructure)- User-pays principle: Users should pay the real cost of water services, taking into account the ability to pay. Adifferent, and more contentious, principle is that water is an economic good, and that users should pay theeconomic value of water, provided that this principle does not conflict with the equity principle.- Polluter-pays principle: Whoever inflicts damage on the natural resources system should pay for the damage- Precautionary principle: Governments should provide security to the people, including safety, food security,health care, protection against disasters, risk avoidance, conservation of natural resources, a healthy environmentand merit goods.(Source: Savenije H. and van der Zaag P. 2002).SHARING WATER FOR REGIONAL INTEGRATIONthere is often an administrative/institutionalvoid when dealing with the managementof water resources. This is especially true atthe transnational level;(b) Management of water resources has generallyconcentrated on surface water, whileinsufficient attention has been given togroundwater, soil moisture (“green water”)and related aspects;(c) Perhaps the biggest problem in sharing aninternational water resources system is itssheer scale and the opaqueness of systeminteractions over large distances (upstreamand downstream). For example, it is difficultto see, let alone quantify, the consequencesof upstream land use changes on downstreamflood levels. This opaqueness mayresult in unforeseen negative consequencesThe sovereignty dilemma:To what extent may individual countries developand use resources found within their territories, andto what extent do they have to consider interestsof riparian countries, and the “common interest” ofthe river basin as a whole?of human interventions, which are difficultto correct and may give rise to tensions betweenriparian countries sharing the basin.The legal institutional aspectsThe institutional framework for water resourcesmanagement is discussed under the chapterGOVERNING WATER WISELY which recommendsreconciling the interests of water usersat all times and facilitating proper water policyand programme implementation by striving toincrease available supplies through proper planningusing the physical water basin as the basisfor water management; and regulation of internationalcosts and boundaries, that is, all activitiesfor adequate quantity and quality of watersupply for various transboundary uses throughinternational agreements on water allocation andpollution control.Savenije H. and van der Zaag P. (2002) give thethree important systems of water rights as:(a)Riparian rights, which link ownership, orreasonable use of water, to ownership of theadjacent or overlying lands. These rights are259