WORKING PAPER SERIES Working Paper No. 7 Civil Society and Internationalized River Basin Management Fiona Miller & Philip Hirsch Australian Mekong Resource Centre University of Sydney June 2003 © Copyright: Fiona Miller & Philip Hirsch 2003 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author. National Library of Australia Cataloguing Information Miller, Fiona, 1971Civil society and internationalized river basin management. ISBN 1 86487 204 7. 1. Watershed management. 2. Watershed management - Social aspects. 3. Watershed management - International cooperation. 4. Water resources development. I. Hirsch, Philip, 1957- . II. Australian Mekong Resource Centre. III. Title. (Series : Working paper (Australian Mekong Resource Centre) ; no. 7). Call No. 333.9115 Other titles in AMRC Working Paper Series: Cornford, Jonathan (1999) Australian Aid, Development Advocacy and Governance in the Lao PDR McCormack, Gavan (2000) Water Margins: Development and Sustainability in China Gunning-Stevenson, Helen (2001) Accounting for Development: Australia and the Asian Development Bank in the Mekong Region Hashimoto, Takehiko ‘Riko’ (2001) Environmental Issues and Recent Infrastructure Development in the Mekong Delta: Review, Analysis and Recommendations with Particular Reference to Large-scale Water Control Projects and the Development of Coastal Areas Linn, Alanna & Bailey, Doug (2002) Twinning Squares and Circles: the MDBC-MRC Strategic Liaison Program and the Applicability of the Murray-Darling Basin Management Model to the Mekong River Basin Makim, Abigail (2002) The Changing Face of Mekong Resource Politics in the Post-Cold War Era: re-negotiating arrangements for water resource management in the Lower Mekong River Basin (1991-1995) Cover & layout Printed by Distributed by AMRC University of Sydney Printing Service Australian Mekong Resource Centre University of Sydney (F09), NSW 2006 Australia Tel 61-2-9351 7796 Fax 61-2-9351 8627 email: mekong@mail.usyd.edu.au www.mekong.es.usyd.edu.au Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................... 5 2. TRENDS IN RIVER BASIN DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................ 6 2.1 Integrated approaches to river basins ...................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Role of civil society .................................................................................................................................... 7 2.3 Internationalisation of river basin development experience ................................................................... 8 3. DISCUSSION .......................................................................................................................14 3.1 Tensions ..................................................................................................................................................... 14 3.2 Learning lessons .......................................................................................................................................15 4. CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................16 4.1 River basin development as a negotiated process ................................................................................. 16 4.2 Issues of scale orientation ........................................................................................................................16 REFERENCES .........................................................................................................................18 3 AMRC Working Paper No. 7 AMRC Working Paper No. 7 4 1. INTRODUCTION There appears to be an emerging consensus that integrated river basin management (IRBM) is the way forward for managing the resources of large rivers sustainably, equitably and efficiently (McDonald and Kay 1988; Mitchell 1990; United Nations Sustainable Development 1992; Newson 1997; Heathcote 1998; Global Water Partnership 2000) Yet the discourse and application of IRBM reveal key points of contestation. Contestation over river basin management is based around key tensions in the directions implied in a universalized, holistic approach. This paper explores the intersection of, and tensions between, three broad trends in river basin management in its international development context, namely: the shift to more integrated approaches to river basins, the increased role of civil society in actions and decisions around river basins, and the internationalisation of river basin development experience. We argue that effective development and management of watershed resources is a socially embedded process, and as Heathcote argues, “a journey, not a destination” (Heathcote 1998:13), but that IRBM has tended to be packaged in such a way as to undermine this insight. International development is increasingly focused on “best practice”, and draws on international experience in wealthier countries in order to provide technical assistance packages for poorer parts of the world. In the case of IRBM, this can cast river basin development into a ‘blue-print’ mold, where river basin development is viewed more as a matter of getting the model right, about defining institutions, action plans and policy agendas largely in the absence of public consultation and participation in this process. Out of this process more centralized and top-down institutions are often created, institutions established in the name of basin-wide approaches for more efficient coordination of resource use. Such institutions fall short of an integration of the multiple values and objectives held by the various stakeholders involved in river basin management. This reveals a tension in the interpretation of IRBM between the recognition of the need for more basin-wide approaches and the trend towards more participatory, decentralized resource management. Alternatively, IRBM can be seen as process, a product of negotiation between civil society and the state, rather than a set of policies, laws, or institutional models that can be transferred readily from one river basin to another, applied in a different context to their origin. Evidence of this is seen in the emergence of a more vital role being played by civil society in decision making on river basin development. This has resulted in the evolution of diverse and innovative institutional arrangements for river basin development planning, management, and conflict resolution, from local level water user associations to catchment committees to basin-wide authorities to national river commissions. In other cases, it is not so much the emergence of new institutional arrangements that has occurred, but rather the formal recognition by the state of pre-existing, traditional or community based arrangements for managing water and other basin resources. In the discussion that follows, we examine the tensions in IRBM first by laying out the significant trends in river basin development, particularly as they apply to the Mekong. We then illustrate the tensions that exist between these directions, and the issues associated with drawing lessons from one context to another. We conclude with a commentary on issues of negotiation and scale in integrated river basin management within international development programs. 5 AMRC Working Paper No. 7 2. TRENDS IN RIVER BASIN DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Integrated approaches to river basins The concept of IRBM forms the discursive backdrop for much of the current debate on society-water relations and is widely interpreted as marking a shift in society’s approaches to water and other basin resources. The shift is primarily from approaches dominated by engineering-based knowledge and intervention, focused on the regulation of rivers for narrow sectoral purposes, to approaches that seek to reform institutions and practices to incorporate a more holistic, sustainable and integrated consideration of geo-physical, ecological and social objectives. IRBM was first developed in relation to developing more integrated approaches to land, water and other sectors. This inter-sectoral approach led to the establishment of inter-ministerial and inter-departmental mechanisms for joint planning and management of these resources. The adoption of the ecosystem approach within IRBM resulted in a change in societal thinking and institutional responses to basin management through its insistence on holistic approaches and the basin as the fundamental planning and management unit (Heathcote 1998), as well as its stress on the maintenance of the health of ecological processes. The ecosystem approach emphasizes the value and necessity of diversity within a system and the importance of flows of material and energy between its inter-connected elements. In their application of the ecosystem approach to the whole river basin, Marchand and Toornstra (1997) stress the interplay between the spontaneous regulation functions of rivers and the artificial regulation introduced by humans (see also Newson 1997). The influence of such ideas has led to the evolution of planning and management interventions that seek to emulate natural flows in modified systems through, for example, allowing natural floods and low flows to maintain and restore the health of riverine ecosystems reliant upon them. Integrated basin-wide approaches have also led to changes in the interplay between different scales of resource planning and management. Though recognition of the integrity of ecological systems and basinwide processes has seen an evolution in management systems defined more in accordance with natural than political or administrative boundaries, basin-wide institutions interact with other scales or areal units. This is because of the contradiction that often exists between natural systems of watersheds, and social systems, whose processes are only partially defined with reference to watersheds or catchments. Lovelace and Rambo summarize this contradiction and its implications for watershed management as follows: The inherent logic of the watershed as a natural, a functional, and an analytical unit and the watershed’s suitability and utility as a planning and management unit are supported only in part by the pattern of human activity across the landscape. This is because many human activities connected with resource exploitation and rural land use are influenced by essentially `social’ factors (e.g. politics, culture, history, religion, and ethnicity), which are only indirectly and partially related to the natural environment as represented by the watershed. Consequently, many of the problems that watershed planners and managers must address in their work lie at the interface of these distinct natural and sociocultural realms. They must understand both of these to work effectively. (Lovelace and Rambo 1991:81) The adoption of an ecosystem approach to river basin management challenges the traditional dominance of engineering and technical sciences in basin management through its recognition of the value of the contributions of ecological sciences (Newson 1997), as well as the social sciences to our understanding of the interconnections between environmental and social systems. The increasing public involvement in matters pertaining to rivers and watersheds has contributed to a concomitant shift in the knowledge base for decision making. This is not just in terms of disciplinary contributions, already evident in the multi-disciplinary nature of much river basin research and policy development, but goes much wider than professional or AMRC Working Paper No. 7 6 disciplinary contributions. Accompanying the recognition of the vital role civil society plays in basin management has been a recognition of the wealth of knowledge held by the multiple stakeholders that make up society, most particularly by those directly reliant on rivers for their livelihoods. This knowledge is not defined according to narrow disciplinary boundaries, but rather it is often based on the intimate, experiential knowledge of the workings of ecological systems. Accompanying the recognition of the value of these diverse forms of knowledge in defining the development paths of river basins and in finding solutions to environmental problems is the recognition of the multiple perspectives, values and objectives held by the wide range of stakeholders involved in basin management. Each stakeholder envisages watershed resources in particular ways, and has views as to how these resources should be used, for what purpose, to whose benefit and at what cost (economically, socially and ecologically). How these diverse values and objectives are negotiated, accommodated and reflected in the processes and institutions for river basin management is one of the most contested dimensions of IRBM. Inherent in the questions raised here is that of what level of decision making and register of knowledge is accommodated, so that issues of decentralisation and subsidiarity become important in river basin governance (Mitchell 1990; Badenoch 2002). Integrated river basin approaches that see local issues as simply “nested” within larger basin decision making run the risk of prioritising the basin over the local sub-catchment scale, and by implication prioritising knowledge systems and types of actors and decision makers (eg international consultants) who operate at the wider scale. Recognition of the differential power relations that exist between stakeholders profoundly affects the participatory nature of mechanisms and forums for negotiation and conflict resolution (Edmunds and Wollenberg 1999). How effectively these institutions take into account the uneven distribution of power is crucial, to ensure the weak are not dominated by the strong, certain forms of knowledge (e.g. science) do not silence others, and the diverse resource values of all stakeholders are respected. It is not enough to recognize the different interests and values attached to water and watershed resources; decisions need to be made which reflect these different and often conflicting aspirations (Mitchell 1990:206). Furthermore, these decisions need to be done in an informed, transparent and accountable manner to ensure the process and resulting decisions have legitimacy in the eyes of the general public. Yet as societal uses, values and objectives for river basins change, so must the institutions established to reflect these multiple values and objectives. IRBM is not a static process, thus there is a need for flexible, iterative and dynamic institutions and policies: …as Viessman points out, neither the natural watershed ecosystem nor the human social and economic systems of the watershed are static. Just as watershed planning must respond to these changes, so must watershed management, including plan implementation, be dynamic rather than static. (Heathcote, 1998:376) Flexible and dynamic institutions are fundamental in successful incorporation of community needs, perspectives and diverse values associated with rivers into river basin management activities. For this to occur there needs to be strong mechanisms of consultation between managers and resource users and other stakeholders, in other words there needs to be a dialogue between these institutions and civil society. 2.2 Role of civil society Civil society has played a growing role in defining the policies and institutions necessary for more integrated approaches to rivers which reflect the multiple values and objectives of stakeholders (Both ENDS, 2000). This increased role for civil society has challenged the power base of the professionals, technocrats, bureaucrats, economists and engineers who have traditionally dominated river basin planning and manage- 7 AMRC Working Paper No. 7 ment. The inclusion of resource users and others with a stake in the multiple values of the river basin in “manager” roles has not surprisingly been strongly resisted by these traditional “managers” as it not only redefines the politics of the decision making landscape but also the kinds of river basin development proposed. The greater inclusion of civil society in debates and actions around basin management has been instrumental in the trend towards a more decentralized approach to decision making on the allocation and use of basin resources, and with this a rejection of the orthodox “command and control” approach to rivers that characterized centralized institutional arrangements of the past. Yet there is a tension here between the shift to more decentralized approaches associated with more participatory resource decision making and the institution building that has occurred with attempts at more holistic planning, as reflected in the creation of river basin organisations. Where such agencies have been established without due regard for pre-existing social and cultural patterns of resource use and decision making, top-down and centralized decision making structures have been produced, disengaged from the local sphere of society-nature interactions. This is in contrast to the more negotiated, bottom-up approaches characteristic of a decentralized approach, which takes its starting point from the immediate needs, aspirations and perspectives of civil society. A related trend, is that at the same time as civil society has become more active in the processes of defining resource development paths, so too has the private sector. This is one of the most contested aspects of recent discourse of IRBM, and is tied to more general debates on the privatisation of public assets and of decision making about public goods (for example by private consultancies taking on roles of public agencies), and the redefinition of property rights. Whilst there is insufficient space in this paper to address properly the implications of this trend, there is clearly no singular arrangement of the public and private allocation of resources and rights which is appropriate or applicable for all contexts. A generic term for collective decision making about public or collective goods in river basin management and other realms is “governance”. Yet this agenda is itself a quite contested area, particularly in the establishment of new governance structures in the water sector in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Many governance programs supported by bilateral and multilateral development institutions are closely related to marketization as part of the institutional/bureaucratic reform agenda, and this leads to tensions as river basin management and water allocation are privatized, based on a model that assumes a binary between state and corporate management. For civil society, community management and control is the key concern of better governance. 2.3 Internationalisation of river basin development experience Due to the large-scale and technology- and capital-intensive nature of river basin development as it first emerged in the first half of the twentieth century, often with hydro-power development as its centrepiece, river basin development has been more internationally-dominated and public than other forms of resource exploitation (Bakker, 1999:211). As such, the concept of IRBM has also been constructed at an international scale through key international forums by UN agencies and international water organisations. Further reflecting the international nature of the concept is the emphasis given in the literature to international cooperation, technology transfer and capacity building to assist developing countries implement the concept and address critical water problems (United Nations Sustainable Development, 1992; Global Water Partnership, 2000). Indeed, just as the definition of water as a factor in development has facilitated the intervention by countries of the North into the river basins of the South, through the transfer of the hardware (technology and infrastructure), so now the concept of IRBM continues this intervention. This time the focus is much more on the transfer of soft infrastructure, in the form of policy, models, and institutions. The internationalisation of river basin management experience helps determine which kinds of organisations and coun- AMRC Working Paper No. 7 8 tries are able to participate and on what terms, as well as the values and perspectives on water and basin resources that dominate this process. The World Bank is an active player in the internationalisation of river basin development. It has been involved in setting the international water and river basin policy agenda, as well as assisting with national policy development, infrastructure development (Moore and Sklar, 1998) and the establishment of river basin authorities (Kirmani and Le Moigne, 1997) in many countries in the South. The World Bank is the single largest source of funds for water projects internationally, with lending in the water sector accounting for 15 per cent of the Bank’s cumulative lending up till 1993 (Moore and Sklar, 1998:345). The World Bank has been the single largest funder of dams throughout the world, and associated with this hardware has been the transfer of basin planning and management expertise from the North to the South. The World Bank has also been influential in the establishment of river basin organisations, as documented in a World Bank publication in 1997 (Kirmani and Le Moigne, 1997), and its 1993 and 2002 water policies (World Bank, 1993; World Bank, 2002). There has been a close relationship between the World Bank, the largest funder of river basin development, and the single most influential model of comprehensive or integrated river basin development, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The World Bank has been active in supporting the transfer of this model to the Mekong, the Indus (See Kirmani and Le Moigne, 1997) and elsewhere including Sri Lanka and India. The international significance of the TVA is further supported by the publication of a World Bank technical paper in 1998 (no. 416), entitled Comprehensive River Basin Development: The Tennessee Valley Authority (Miller and Reidinger,1998). The authors of the report write, The Tennessee Valley Authority, better known as TVA, has perhaps the best name recognition in the business of river basin management. It is considered by many outside the United States as the model for river basin development and management. (Miller and Reidinger, 1998) This publication followed a World Bank-sponsored seminar “River Basin Management: Tennessee Valley Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin” on February 13, 1997 held in Washington, D.C, USA, and was written with the aim of summarising “those aspects of TVA - particularly those related to water resources management - that could serve as a useful reference to Bank staff and client countries in evaluating the various institutional arrangements, operating programs, technological bases, and other conditions conducive to comprehensive river basin development” (Miller and Reidinger, 1998). The appeal of the TVA experience lies in the apparent economic benefits the scheme brought to a previously impoverished part of the US. The electricity generated by the 42 tributary and 9 mainstream dams, as well as their navigation, and flood and malaria control benefits, has been identified as instrumental to the regional development of the Tennessee Valley area (McDonald and Kay, 1988; Newson, 1997; Miller and Reidinger, 1998). The TVA is both a power utility and a river basin management authority, yet there are strong and continuing tensions between these two roles. The TVA gave rise to such concepts as multi-purpose river basin development, regional development, watershed management, comprehensive river basin development, and integrated land and water management. Yet the claims to multi-purpose development are overshadowed by the overwhelming priority given to electricity production by the TVA (McDonald and Kay, 1988:194), with 98 percent of TVA revenue generated by its power operations (Miller and Reidinger, 1998). Since the 1940s much of this power has been generated from non-hydropower sources, primarily coal-fired plants and nuclear energy. The TVA is the single largest consumer of coal in the country and is a significant greenhouse gas emitter and is responsible for generating other pollutants and impacts from its large-scale strip mining activities in the valley region (McDonald and Kay, 1988:196). The TVA has come to be synonymous with integrated approaches to river basin development, yet in more recent years in the context of a de-regulated power market and 9 AMRC Working Paper No. 7 preparation for possible privatisation of the TVA, the chairman announced a proposal to free the TVA of its non-profit making operations, i.e. the non-power operations of resources and environmental management (Miller and Reidinger, 1998). This would effectively dismantle the integrated approach to river basin management which has defined the TVA since the 1930s. Though socio-economic development of the region has been a guiding objective of river basin development in the Tennessee Valley, with local benefits generated through the supply of cheap electricity, credit schemes and technical assistance for agricultural development and soil conservation, as well as the creation of jobs and the attraction of industry to the region, there is another side to the TVA experience. The creation of a “corporation clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise” (Miller and Reidinger, 1998) resulted in the large-scale appropriation of land by the state for reservoirs, and other water control and mining developments. The construction of dams resulted in the destruction of many Indian sacred sites (including the flooding of the Cherokee homeland) and denial of Indian resource rights, the loss of some of the most productive farmland in the valley, massive costs (including US$26 billion dollars of debt largely due to nuclear power development), and widespread environmental impacts (Palmer, 1986; McDonald and Kay, 1988; McCully, 1996; Miller and Reidinger, 1998). Furthermore, a large part of the flood control benefits of the scheme have focused on just one city, and the apparent economic benefits of the scheme for valley residents has been questioned in light of the equivalent (or higher) increases in per capita incomes for populations in surrounding areas outside the scope of the TVA and the inflation of returns on investments by the TVA (Palmer, 1986). The authors of the World Bank report write, The TVA model has never been replicated in the United States, in part due to states’ rights issues and opposition by other federal agencies. Similarly, in other countries where there are strong local governments and existing national institutions, the implementation of a strong regional authority might not be appropriate or even possible. (Miller and Reidinger, 1998) This indicates the tensions and politics associated with the creation of strong, centralized river basin authorities. The TVA experience has been interpreted by some as a great democratic enterprise, an example of ‘grassroots participation’ (Lilienthal, 1953) in river basin development due to the high levels of local government involvement in early planning and management activities. These claims have not gone unchallenged, as seen in the work of sociologist Philip Selznick (Selznick, 1966), Tugwell and Banfield (cited in McDonald and Kay, 1988), McCully (McCully, 1996) and others. Since the end of the construction phase of developments in the 1950s the institutional structure for the TVA has revealed certain weaknesses, the greatest of which is the continued centralized control of basin development and lack of stakeholder involvement. There is no formalized mechanism for stakeholder participation in decision making and there is no effective means to ensure critical oversight of the agency. Although TVA has historically worked closely with the states, local communities, and citizens, and utilizes a public review process around specific projects, there is no direct representation of stakeholders in the management of TVA or a formalized mechanism for consensus-building. There is also no well-established mechanism for internal, independent scrutiny of policies, while external congressional oversight has not always been consistent or rigorous. (Miller and Reidinger, 1998) Analysis of the experience of the TVA thus reveals tensions between the aims of multipurpose river basin development and the over-riding focus on power generation, trade-offs between the aims of industry and environmental and social objectives, as well as tensions between centralisation for basin control and the representation of the multiple interests of the various stakeholders of the Tennessee Valley. How the success of the TVA is measured and the lessons to be drawn from the development of the Tennessee Valley AMRC Working Paper No. 7 10 differs a great deal according to the multiple values and perspectives of those evaluating its experience. A quite different yet also internationally well known and widely promoted model of river basin development, particularly in a multi-jurisdictional context, is that of the Murray-Darling River Basin of south-eastern Australia. The Murray-Darling Basin developed under quite different circumstances to that of the Tennessee River valley, with water allocations, particularly for irrigation, rather than hydro-power development being the main issue affecting current river basin management and institutional arrangements between the basin states. It also represents a more cooperative model of basin management between the five state and territory, and Commonwealth governments, represented in the Ministerial Council of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC). The Commission is charged with the execution of the policies of the Ministerial Council. The Murray-Darling Basin is of crucial importance to the Australian economy in terms of food production and the export of agricultural products, with a quarter of the country’s cattle and dairy farms located in the basin, half the nation’s sheep and cropland, and three-quarters of the irrigated land (Newson, 1997:135). Yet it is primarily the allocation of water for irrigation, which has resulted in the serious ecological decline and degradation that characterizes the Murray-Darling system today. Although the irrigated land constitutes just one percent of the basin area, it is responsible for consumption of 90 percent of its water (ibid). The environmental legacy of over-allocation of water for irrigation, as well as inappropriate farming practices, has resulted in large areas of the basin affected by dry land and irrigation salinity and serious nutrient pollution of the river system. According to the MDBC, between 3-5 million hectares of land in the eastern and southern regions of the Basin will be salt affected within 50-100 years (Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council, 2000). The issue of salinity in the Murray-Darling Basin is widely recognized as one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the country today, and is estimated to cost $247 million annually in just eight of the tributary valleys of the Basin (ibid). Though the MDBC has increasingly focused its efforts on environmental management and restoration, the 1992 Agreement has been criticized for its inadequacy in regards to ensuring the rehabilitation of the ecology of the basin, and the subsequent lack of revision of the Agreement in light of the concept of sustainable development and the environmental protocols of Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (Blanch and Holden, 2001). As such, the Agreement does not incorporate the concepts of the precautionary principle, and inter- and intragenerational equity (ibid). The growing awareness of the critical nature of the environmental problems in the Murray-Darling system has proven to be a catalyst for a range of stakeholder initiatives in the management and restoration of basin resources, particularly since the late 1980s. Community participation in the management of the MurrayDarling Basin has evolved over time, reflecting the increased role of civil society in resource management activities and decision making. The various institutional innovations found in the Basin also reflect the unique nature of representative democracy in Australia. At a local level community and other stakeholder representatives, including environmental groups, participate in river management and catchment committees to define land use plans, local resource development strategies, water allocations and ecological restoration initiatives at a sub-catchment level, although arrangements differ from state to state. At the Commission level a Community Advisory Committee (CAC) was formed in 1986 and is seen to be fairly successfully representing community interests at this level, although not all stakeholder interests are represented. It does not just respond to MDBC decisions but can raise its own concerns (Linn and Bailey 2002:14). Yet Chenoweth and Bird (2000) state that some stakeholders feel participation does not allow them to effectively input into or influence the MDBC’s agenda despite the CAC linking directly with the Ministerial Council. There has been considerable interest in exploring the international relevance of the Australian experience in river basin development, and in particular that of the Murray-Darling Basin (Bui Kim Chi, 1996; Bui Kim 11 AMRC Working Paper No. 7 Chi, 1997; Chenoweth, 1999; Gillbank, 1999; Birch and Taylor, 1999; Malano and others, 1999; Chenoweth, 2000; Linn and Bailey, 2002). The MDBC has been promoted as a case of “a world’s best practice model in basin management, particularly across jurisdictional borders” (Senator Robert Hill in Linn and Bailey, 2002:5). This perspective draws on the success of particular institutional arrangements of cooperation in river basin management between the states and multiple stakeholders. The apparent institutional success of the Murray-Darling Basin case, particularly in terms of the resolution of water sharing conflicts and stakeholder participation in decision making and basin management, is in stark contrast with the ecological state of the basin, which is widely acknowledged as suffering under the impacts of river regulation from thousands of dams and weirs, over allocation of water for irrigation, vegetation clearance, dry land salinity, water quality problems, the loss of wetland and other riverine habitats, and floodplain modification (Smith and Finlayson, 1988; Walker, 1994; Smith, 1998; Young, 2001). The apparent mixed success of the Murray-Darling Basin has not proven to be an obstacle to the promotion of the MurrayDarling Basin model internationally, including in China (in the Tarim Basin) and the countries of Southeast Asia. More recently, AusAID has funded a strategic liaison program (1996-ongoing) between the MDBC and the river basin authority of the Mekong Basin, the Mekong River Commission (MRC). The international influence of the two models of the TVA and Murray-Darling Basin comes together in the Mekong Basin of Southeast Asia. The Mekong Basin perhaps more than any other international river basin has had a greater role played by international actors in the formulation of its development plans and institutional arrangements due to its strategic position in post-colonial and Cold War geopolitics. Both the TVA and Murray-Darling Basin experiences, at different times throughout the history of cooperative efforts for Mekong River basin development, have been influential in defining the development strategies and institutional arrangements for the basin authority of the Mekong River - the MRC since 1995, previously the Mekong Committee. The US experience of river basin development and the TVA scheme in particular were influential in the Mekong Basin during the 1960s when plans to build a ‘cascade’ of mainstream dams first emerged (Bui Kim Chi, 1997; Jacobs, 1998; Nguyen Thi Dieu, 1999). The TVA model and the export of US dam building expertise was situated within the context of US geopolitical interests in the region during the Cold War period of the 1960s and 1970s. In a speech by President Johnson at John Hopkins University in 1965, as part of his explanation as to why the US was bombing North Viet Nam, he promised US$1 billion in aid for the Mekong Program (Browder and Ortolano, 2000:507), saying: The vast Mekong River can provide food and water and power on a scale to dwarf even our own Tennessee Valley Authority. (Lyndon B Johnson in Nguyen Thi Dieu, 1999:106) Later, following the subsidence of Cold War tensions in the region in the 1990s, another quite different model of basin development came to influence the institutional arrangements of cooperation in the Mekong Basin. The MDBC and the 1992 Agreement of the MDBC were influential in the formulation of the MRC and its 1995 Agreement, with the MDBC having direct input into the development of the 1995 Agreement (Chenoweth, 2000:101). Since 1996 the MDBC has been cooperating with the MRC to share lessons from the experience of river basin development in the Murray-Darling Basin and to establish processes of river basin planning and rules for water utilisation. Apart from this example of a specific relationship between basin organisations, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has become increasingly active in the transfer of institutional models and policy packages for IRBM in the countries of the Southeast Asia, and the Mekong Basin countries in particular. The ADB, the World Bank and bilateral donors have in recent years supported the establishment of river basin authorities and national water councils in Viet Nam, Thailand, Laos, China, Sri Lanka and elsewhere and have been involved in defining water resource development strategies and priorities. The transfer of river basin development experience from one context to another, particularly from high AMRC Working Paper No. 7 12 income, industrialized countries to low income countries, raises questions regarding the applicability and appropriateness of such a process, and has specific implications for the trends towards more integrated approaches and a greater role for civil society in river basin management. There are several general assumptions that underlie the transfer of river basin management experience between river basin managers: • Rivers and river basins function ecologically in sufficiently similar ways so that models or development packages can transcend differences in ecology, or can be adapted to different ecological contexts, so that for example the concept of environmental flows can be drawn from one context to another. • All or most river basin resources have values that can be incorporated within market calculations, allowing for economic as well as physical modelling of river basin development options, optimisations and trade-offs. • The dilemmas of sustainable development always provide trade-offs between managing river basins for environmental and developmental benefit, so that for example the idea of a calculable cap might have relevance across river basins. • Stakeholder-inclusive approaches to river basin development have allowed for a participatory approach to river basin development, and this setting of future directions is transferable from one river basin authority (eg. MDBC) to another (eg MRC). • There are sufficient parallels in the multi-jurisdictional management of large river basins, irrespective of the nature of those jurisdictions or of the relationships between them, to warrant transfer of macrogovernance structures - such as has occurred in the design of the MRC’s governance structure as adapted from the Murray Darling Basin Initiative. These assumptions raise questions as to how transferable the lessons from one basin are to another ecological, economic, developmental, social and political context: • How exactly can the environmental mistakes committed in one basin be avoided in another? • How much do the lessons drawn from the TVA and Murray-Darling Basin experiences depend on the perspective and values of the individuals or organisations identifying these lessons? Have the lessons really be learnt? • Whose perspective and values dominate the relationships and processes of transfer? • How transferable are mechanisms and institutions for stakeholder participation from one civil society context to another? • What is the motivation behind the transfer of experience and how different is this from the political economy associated with the transfer of river basin development hardware from the North to the South? 13 AMRC Working Paper No. 7 3. DISCUSSION 3.1 Tensions We have identified three key trends in river basin development. However, these are not independent of one another, and tensions between them pose challenges both for civil society roles and for programs that seek to internationalize river basin development experience. Two areas of tension are outlined below. Integrated approaches to river basin management are based on holistic thinking and, in many cases, on a type of bioregionalism (Powell, 1993). The interconnectedness of different water and land uses within river basins has become increasingly well understood, and the critique of narrow sectoral or geographically and ecologically fragmented approaches to management have been behind the push for IRBM (eg. McNally and Tognetti, 2002). Integration does not necessarily dictate centralisation of decision making, but within prevailing political economies there is nevertheless a tendency in this direction. The institutional structures created, for example multi-jurisdictional river basin commissions, are based on the need to set up governance at a level above that of river users whose interests and resource uses are actually or potentially in conflict. In principle, this can go hand-in-hand with innovative structures for more decentralized input and stakeholder processes in river basin management, for example the CAC of the Murray-Darling Basin Initiative described above. In practice, there remains a tendency for the Commissions to be answerable mainly to their primary constituent members, that is the governmental riparians who comprise the formal constituency. Tensions thus arise between the integrative, holistic aspect of IRBM as institutionalized through river basin commissions and the decentralized involvement of civil society actors and direct land and water users as “managers” of the basin. There are also tensions between internationalisation of river basin development approaches and civil society roles. The tendency in internationalisation is to universalize, since the basis of exporting river basin development experience is that what is relevant in one place should also apply, with greater or lesser adaptation to local conditions, in another. At its more extreme end, such transfer involves models or packages. This sits uneasily with the very different nature of civil society between river basins. In the case of international river basins, most notably the Mekong, civil society is a highly differentiated entity between riparian member countries. The relevance of grassroots participatory approaches remains, but sociopolitical contingencies of each case are quite different. Perhaps even more significant than the structural differences between stakeholder roles, existing institutions, power relations and so on between countries and river basins, is the fact that effective civil society involvement in river basin development has come about historically as a set of challenges, articulation of alternative visions, coalitions of interest and other processes that involve negotiation at societal level. This is very different from what might be “programmed participation”, designed as part of an aid package or modelled on river basin committee structures that have emerged elsewhere. It should be noted that it is not only official / governmental experience that needs to take careful account of the specificities of civil society. There are significant differences in NGO and other stakeholder positions and interests from one river basin context to another. A clear example is the position of non-governmental environmental organisations on the issue of water pricing within a river basin context. In Australia, many of the key environmental groups lobby for full-cost water pricing to reflect the environmental as well as scarcity costs of the resource, most notably in the Murray-Darling Basin. In the Mekong region, especially in Thailand, there is strong opposition by NGOS to water pricing, most notably on equity grounds, on the basis that there are existing or alternative mechanisms for water allocation. An important contextual difference here is the relative socio-economic status of farmers in the two countries, and the differences in levels of marketisation of the respective economies. Also important is the history of profligacy of water use in AMRC Working Paper No. 7 14 Australia on large farms, compared with the smallholding pattern of Southeast Asian agriculture in which there are much more limited options for water conservation among the poorer sections of society in response to market signals. However, a number of programs supported by international development banks, and drawing on principles derived from developed market economies, are now driving the official water reform agenda in the Mekong region, engendering conflict with civil society voices. The fact of these tensions does not pose insurmountable problems; rather, the tensions properly recognized pose creative challenges in the structures and processes of integration and transfer. Integrated river basin management needs to engage civil society in a more equal way and avoid the centralizing tendencies of holistic management. River basin transfer needs to pay as much attention to the enabling environments that have facilitated greater participation and negotiated outcomes as to the specifics of particular institutional arrangements that govern the relationship between grassroots actors and river basin commissions in any one place. A more iterative and dialectical approach is needed in understanding the relationship between internationalized and localized approaches to river basin management, particularly concerning the awareness and responsiveness of those involved in river basin transfer to existing social, political, cultural and institutional aspects of land and water management at local levels. Thus, the issue is not so much one of whether or not international experience is relevant, but rather of what is relevant – packages and models, or processes and principles? 3.2 Learning lessons The key assumption behind the transfer of river basin development experience is that approaches, models, infrastructure or sets of institutions developed in one setting are appropriate to another. At one level, the precautionary way of dealing with differences in context is to spend sufficient time and resources examining the ecological, economic, social and institutional setting of the “receiving” river basin to avoid unsuitable transfers. Indeed, a significant advance in liaison arrangements such as the Murray-Darling – Mekong Strategic Liaison has been to do just that. However, there are some important caveats to this approach. First, it is important to recognize that in any open, accountable and transparent decision-making setting there are divergent views on the appropriateness of particular arrangements. Despite the creation of CAC, for example, there is still a lack of consensus among many environmental and other groups that the institutional arrangements in place are necessarily the most appropriate ones. This lack of consensus is a part of the dialectic that governs robust societal involvement in use, allocation and management of resources. The risk inherent in transfer is that consensus is assumed or even forced from above. Perhaps the most productive and instructive exposure that official and civil society actors from the “receiving” river basin could receive in a transfer or liaison program would be to the array of approaches, institutional arrangements, views, and – most importantly – the accommodation and mechanisms of dealing with them in their widest societal context. However, the sensitivities involved in official development programs can also be a constraint here. Second, in the context of international aid, the transfer of international river basin development experience becomes a matter of negotiation between the international water experts and national water experts, rather than between civil society and government. The tendency for communities of experts, working in consultancy mode, to come up with packaged recommendations or solutions, short-circuits the societal learning that has been part of a much longer process of creation of robust institutional arrangements and processes in the “source” river basins. The emergence of robust, participatory, stakeholder-inclusive approaches in the Murray-Darling Basin, imperfect though they might be and open to challenge as they remain, has been an organic process, driven by competing or even conflicting models, and not driven by small groups of institutional design experts. 15 AMRC Working Paper No. 7 4. CONCLUSION By way of conclusion, we point to two neglected aspects of international transfer of experience in river basin development: the significance of negotiation and scale orientation. As with the thrust of the paper as a whole, we do not wish to negate the value of drawing on experience from one context to another, but rather to encourage reflection on the wider socio-political context in which it is carried out. 4.1 River basin development as a negotiated process Each river basin has a social, economic and political as well as ecological history. Agrarian structures vary from subsistence-based livelihoods through more commercially-oriented smallholder agriculture to larger scale broad-acre farming, pastoralism and agribusiness. Levels of industrial development, of river control and regulation vary, as do individual, collective or statist means of managing water. As a result the starting point for river basin development is not at the point of establishment of a particular agency or new set of institutional arrangements, but rather in the history of uses and means of management among diverse actors and interest groups that have evolved over time. For a robust process of institution building in river basin development, locally embedded processes are fundamental. In most river basins, there are processes of negotiation at multiple levels: negotiation over water itself, negotiation over water rights, and negotiation over the most appropriate model of river basin development – or, put another way, over river basin futures. Negotiation is an essentially endemic process. The conditions under which negotiation occurs – the enabling or disenabling environments for participation – can certainly be influenced or affected by imported models, principles or approaches, but the process itself involves those whose primary interests are in the basin and its resources. A challenge for those involved in transfer of river basin development experience, whether through development assistance programs or otherwise, is to step outside the prescriptive, blueprint approach and to recognize the necessity – as well as the justice and sustainability aspects – of negotiation between river basin stakeholders. 4.2 Issues of scale orientation The logic of international river basin transfer is to look to international experience, and indeed there is much to be gained from taking a considered and selective/reflective set of lessons from around the world. However, there is also a risk that over-reliance on international experience, particularly in a donor-dependent river basin commission such as the MRC, can also take attention away from local experience. Scale of orientation is important for a number of reasons. In the identification of different institutional arrangements there is much to be gained from a scaling up of experience and knowledge and perspectives from the local level, so that macro-scale institutions are more directly linked to the primary users of watershed resources. This would thus ensure institutions and decision making processes are more embedded with local society, culture and economy and that ways of managing, using and thinking about water and other related basin resources reflect societal norms – albeit in all their diversity in a large international river basin. This is not to suggest that river basin managers have nothing to learn from the international experience of river basin development elsewhere, yet it is to challenge the idea that river basin management is about getting the model right. As indicated above, river basin development is a dynamic process, negotiated between civil society and resource management institutions. It is rare to find consensus on the most appropriate set of institutions or policies to manage watershed resources, as evident in the debates around water in the Murray-Darling Basin, yet if the process of river basin management is inclusive, iterative and flexible AMRC Working Paper No. 7 16 in accommodating the multiple objectives of stakeholders it is more likely there will be greater acceptance of outcomes. For this to occur, the scale of orientation needs to shift from the macro to the local, to those most reliant on basin resources and most directly affected by environmental degradation. 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