Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) is designed to provide solutions. Practical strategies for implementing IWRM have been shown to work. These work best when they address the needs of nature in combination with social and economic development. They require changes from traditional ‘top-down’ water management. Practical strategies overcome lack of coordination among sectors and disjointed planning that can otherwise easily result in unnecessary expenditure and large infrastructure that fails to provide expected results, at the expense of natural ecosystems.
Identifying the Problem
IWRM is prepared to replace fragmented management of water and encourage sustainable use. Planning for IWRM takes place using inclusive, participatory processes. The big challenge is to implement IWRM. The IUCN Water and Nature Initiative showed that implementing IWRM is made practical by explicit strategies to demonstrate what works, how to deliver results on the ground and learning-by-doing. Real progress is built by combining demonstration and learning with empowerment of communities, and actions that support and catalyse national and basin-level water reforms with financing and investment that can be sustained.
Recommendations
- Planning should not be done in isolation from practical action and learning.
- Embed learning strategies in demonstrations to capture evidence of what works.
- Communicate and share lessons in ways that catalyze action at local, national and basin levels.
- Implementing IWRM requires water governance that is coordinated across levels and promotes and facilitates consensus building.
- Financing IWRM implementation must be sustainable.
Evidence for action
- Complement Planning With River Basin Demonstration Projects
- Communicate Evidence on What Works
- Put in Place Good Water Governance
- Finance Water Resource Management Sustainably