The Emerging Role of Civil Society for Water Governance in Bangladesh

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The Emerging Role of Civil Society for Water
Governance in Bangladesh
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Background InformationWater crisis scenario-at a
glance

• Overwhelming dependency on water resources/highly
  dense population/ chronic poverty most
  environmentally vulnerable areas
• By 2050 the population over 220 million 1
  
• 79.85 of the people rural2
• Agriculture 63 of the labor force/ 19 of
  GDP.
• Fisheries sector 9 of the country employs/ 4
  GDP 3
• Water crisis excessive and scarcity of water
• Frequent flood/ draught/salinity
  intrusion/deforestation/water pollution
• The ground water arsenic contamination

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• At present, water resources highly scared,
  eroded and degraded
• Immediate risk global warming and rise in sea
  levels.
• Only 50cm sea level rise engulf two-thirds of
  the country 4
• Most of surface water controlled from outside of
  the country
• Competition / environmental degradation /
  environmental change
• livelihood insecurity / environmental refugee.
• Upcoming decades most critical issue?

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Aim Rationale of this presentation

• To understand the environment-security linkage
  focusing on the emerging role of civil society in
  the water governance
• Whether civil society can play a responsive role
  in the decision making of water governance in
  Bangladesh?
• If so, then how the civil societies in Bangladesh
  can increase public involvement in decision
  making?
• Water related studies
• engineering and agricultural perspective
• focused on water institutions and policies
• the interactions between politics, civil
  society, institutions are nominal

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Key concept (1) Water governance

• Governance establishment and operational of
  social institutions
• (sets of rules, decision making procedures and
  programmatic activities)
• Water governance not only on specific
  institutions
• overall governance context determine
  who gets what in water
• to make space both for state and non state
  actors
• This demands public participation as the
  foundation of their political legitimacy.
• state the arena of collective action which is
  essential for environmental governance

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Key concept (2)Civil society

• Civil society a set of intermediary groups in
  the public sphere,
• which can act independently of the state
  authorities, market activities and family
• The concept based on
• the normative values of civil rights
• civil society as a public sphere in general
• different from society in general
• As the essence of civil society is collective
  action, it does offer
• a touchtone for social movements
• and a practical framework for organizing
  resistance and alternative solutions to social,
  economic and political problems 5
• The actor of civil society
• volunteer organization/NGOs/political group/
  labor union/ media/ business sector /cultural and
  religious organizations /academe and
  international community

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Key concept (3)Environmental security

• Environmental security
• response to non traditional environmental
  threats to human security.
• public safety from environmental dangers
  caused by natural or human process.
• In this study environmental threats
• water related crisis

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The Framework for environment-security linkage
Socio-economic factor (population growth,
poverty)
Effective
adaptive
mechanism

(Right based approach, collective decision
making))
Co-operation, stability
Social effects
Water crisis
Environmental Social stress
Weak negative adaptive Mechanism (fragmented
and state centric approach)
Instability, conflict, insecurity
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Key argument

• The problem of water crisis and its consequences
  greatly lie on water-governance problem rather
  the resource scarcity.
• Sustainability of water resources require better
  water governance. For this the communities must
  be involved in a democratic participatory process
  of decision making.
• The huge coverage of civil society in Bangladesh
  have high potential to use advocacy to involve
  the poor people in the decision making and to
  move beyond the patron-client relationship
• Involvement of civil society in water governance
  process thus is itself a sustainability strategy.
  

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Water resource management- at a glance(Past
trends)

• Past four decades
• dominated by an engineering paradigm
• focused on flood control, drainage and
  irrigation projects
• which caused serious adverse environmental
  impacts
• sectoral and fragmented approach
• socio-political aspects were very much nominal
• based on top down approach
• local level water institutions were
  particularly more weak
• stake holder participation was almost unknown
• the participatory process has been introduced
  only to gather the information but not for the
  final approval6.

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The emergences of civil society in changing
policy process of water sector

• In the 1990s
• the pressure from NGOs and Donor community
• restructuring of the water sector
• pressure for reform continued
• In 1998
• FAP (Flood Action Plan) recommendation
• the pressure from NGOs and Donors
• a comprehensive NWPo was initiated
• In 1999 The National Water Policy (NWPo)
• In 2004 National Water Management Plan(NWMP)

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The National Water Policy (NWPo)

• Put much emphasis on
• integrated management,
• community involvement/ stake holder involvement
  
• and necessity of institutional change
• This policy changes can be seen
• as part of wider social and political moves
• towards democratization and decentralization of
  water governance
• Much of this process will depend
• on the implementation process
• the interaction of state-society

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Civil Society in Bangladesh Coverage-at a glance

• By 2000
• more than 90 percent of rural communities have
  some NGO presence7
• civil society includes (registered with the
  Department of Social Welfare.)
• approximately 45,000 thousand clubs, local
  level organization, religious organizations,
  foundations and development oriented NGOs 8
• By the late of 2004
• 1882 NGOs were registered with NGO Affair
  Bureau,
• 1,100-1,200 of them receiving foreign funds9.
  
• Around 700 NGOs are active in the water and
  sanitation sector

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Civil society in Advocacy and in environmental
issues

• In the 1990s
• NGO advocacy with the emergence of multiparty
  electoral democracy
• By the mid 1990s
• development NGOs build new alliances
• develop new strategies
• In case of environmental issue
• the emergences basically since the 1990s (when
  as a whole NGO sector gain prominence in the
  advocacy activities)
• campaign against use of polythene
• awareness activities on air pollution, road side
  forestation, drinking safe water, hygiene and
  sanitation.
• campaign against the inter-linking project of
  India
• Community Based Natural Resource Management
  program

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The scope of civil society

• This huge coverage advocacy role
• itself a huge potential for enhancing public
  involvement
• one powerful challenge to the patron-client
  structure through service delivery activities.
• striking progress on a range of social
  indicators
• an achievement widely credited to the countrys
  pluralist service provision 10
• The 2005 Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
  
• NGOs role as an integral part
• Traditional society longer historical
  experiences
• The language movement in 1952
• the independence struggle in 1971
• the democratization movement in 1990

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• With a full fledged coverage of civil society
• can hold the state accountable for its misdeeds
  of commission or omission
• can facilitate citizen inputs to water policy
  making
• can press the state to be more equitable in
  allocating water resources
• Civil society does offer a real potential for
  dealing with livelihood security and can press
  the state to fulfill its responsibility to
  protect citizens.

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Strategy for civil society

• This paper suggest two strategies to pursue the
  advocacy
• directly targeting the pro-poor groups
• pressing local government unit in such areas
  like distributing khas (govt. owned) land and
  water bodies, guaranteeing access to water
  bodies etc
• forge coalitions with non-poor groups to press
  more broad-based research agenda that can gain
  widespread support11

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Working place for civil society

• Government tier-at a glance
• Union Parisad -the most grassroots level
  government tier (has little funding and less
  capacity)
• Upazilla level government tier Not put in Place
• Central governmental tier-Member of Parliament
  (MP)

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• local civil society initiatives confined to the
  Union level
• But they can
• advocate at the Upazilla level
• can press the TNO (Thana Nirbahi Officer) and
  ministry officers
• promote to reform the local governance structure
• to work directly with MPs
• build the main political link between village
  and capital.
• can co-ordinate with other central level CSOs

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Real scenario and constrains

• Attempts to move the dominant political mode
• invite conflict relationship
• Advocacy activities done by NGOs
• highly dependent on foreign donation
• In 2000-1 the government accused a few NGOs
• stretching their advocacy work into partisan
  political activity.
• Still most of CSOs inactive or in poor
  performance
• Decentralization and participatory initiatives
• controlled by the local elites

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Conclusion

• In spite of these limitations and constrain there
  is huge opportunities for collective action of
  CSO advocacy in Bangladesh and their role in
  water management sector is emerging.
• Public involvement in decision making is possible
  only when the poor can move from the patron
  client relationship. Thus grass roots level CSO
  advocacy can be a sustainable strategy for such
  process.
• The simultaneous initiatives targeting pro-poor
  group and the non poor groups can reduce the
  conflicting relation between patron-client or
  elite-poor.