International Waters: Learning Exchange and Resource Network (IW:LEARN) A cooperative initiative of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP), and the World Bank Perspectives from Latin American and Caribbean Managers Edited by Pablo Suarez (Boston University) and Dann Sklarew* (IW:LEARN) September 2002 International Waters: LEARN is an innovative inter-institutional partnership to build a Web-based 'knowledge community' among transboundary waters projects. Its purpose is to expand knowledgesharing so that people who live in and manage transboundary water systems can better learn from and teach each other.” See http://www.iwlearn.org for details. * Corresponding author: 4211 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203, USA. E-mail:dann@iwlearn.org. Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from Latin American and Caribbean Managers Edited by Pablo Suarez (Boston University) and Dann Sklarew* (IW:LEARN) Executive Summary While the Latin American and Caribbean region (LAC) is relatively rich in water resources, it continues to face serious challenges as a result of localized pollution problems and uneven spatial and temporal availability of water. Issues such as inadequate institutional frameworks, insufficient financial resources and conflicting stakeholder interests augment the difficulty of defining and implementing solutions, particularly in the case of international waters (IW).1 Despite the commonality of challenges, little exchange of experiences among IW managers in LAC has occurred to date. Seeking to create opportunities for interaction among transboundary water managers, GEF3, IW:LEARN4, UNEP5, the World Bank, UNDP7, and OAS8 supported the establishment of two complementary knowledge sharing forums for practitioners: an electronic forum (“GEF-IW-LAC,” active since July 2001), and a face-to-face meeting (“The Inter-American Water Resource Managers Forum,” held in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, September 1-2, 2001). The purpose of these forums was to identify common needs, share lessons learned, discuss opportunities to improve water resources management, and provide “on the ground” insights to international water policy meetings. Over fifty practitioners actively contributed to the discussions. Main recommendations for the IW community include: * Corresponding author: 4211 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203, USA. E-mail: dann@iwlearn.org. 1 International Waters (IW) are defined as bodies of water which extend beyond the sovereignty of a nation. Transboundary waters issues may affect aquifers, rivers, lakes or seas. 2 United Nations Environment Programme 3 Global Environment Facility 4 International Waters Learning Exchange and Resource Network, a GEF-supported capacity-building project. 5 United Nations Environment Programme 6 Organization of American States 7 United Nations Development Programme 8 Organization of American States Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 3 1) Importance and Complexity of Transboundary Water Issues: Country IW managers and their international agencies partners must remain committed to addressing transboundary water issues. Transboundary waters are deeply related to essential aspects of sustainable development, from environmental protection to social development. IW issues are extremely complex; increased institutional and financial support is needed. 2) Institutional Frameworks: All entities involved in IW management should work together to harmonize legal systems, improve existing institutions and, if necessary, create new ones to facilitate a coordinated approach to decision making across administrative units. It is of vital importance to pursue vertical and horizontal integration, foster consensus and joint implementation of activities, and enhance cooperation over competition. 3) Stakeholder Participation and Project ‘Ownership’: Agencies in charge of project development and implementation should incorporate public participation and stakeholder involvement across the lifetime of the project. This can greatly contribute to the success of water projects by both enriching the range of perspectives considered in the process and by developing a sense of ‘ownership’ that ensures commitment to achieve goals. 4) Project Viability and Continuity: Governments and international agencies should establish continuity in funding and, by extension, in human resources to ensure project sustainability. Idle time between project phases should be avoided to maintain momentum, retain public confidence and preserve knowledgeable personnel. 5) Knowledge Sharing: The IW community should increase opportunities for transboundary water managers to share knowledge in an organized way. It is necessary to promote dialogue and interaction among practitioners, as well as establish mechanisms for generating, storing and disseminating experiences and lessons learned. Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 4 These common challenges, emerging priorities and recommendations of transboundary water managers in the LAC region are presented in detail below. Introduction Lakes, rivers, oceans and aquifers are subject to both climate variability and the negative impacts of human activity. Some areas face severe droughts, while others face restrictions due to water quality problems, even where water is available in quantity. Water is a relatively abundant resource in the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC). Nevertheless, as a consequence of its uneven distribution and localized pollution problems, the LAC region continues to face serious challenges in water management. Integrated land and water resources management constitutes an important tool for addressing such issues at the different scales at which they occur. However, difficulties arise in dealing with differing, and potentially conflicting, stakeholder interests. Management problems are often exacerbated where the water system cuts across jurisdictions (e.g. municipalities, provinces or nations). The LAC region presents several cases of transboundary water systems with interesting challenges from a management perspective, including: the Guaraní Aquifer, the Plata River and Amazon River basins in South America; the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System and San Juan River basin in Central America; and the entirety of the Caribbean Sea. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) and its implementing and executing agencies (e.g. United Nations, World Bank, OAS) support a number of initiatives to promote the management of international waters (IW) in LAC. The managers in charge of these transboundary water projects face common challenges, yet approaches and solutions are largely developed on a case-by-case basis without exchange of experiences between basins or stakeholders. Despite their experiential knowledge and expertise, different IW project teams are usually unable to evaluate, extend and recycle the knowledge that they produce among transboundary water projects across the region. There is significant potential for more widely discussing and disseminating the experiences and lessons learned in a manner that could benefit both current and future IW initiatives throughout the LAC region and beyond. Realizing the relevance of this issue, a number of GEF-affiliated organizations involved in transboundary water management in LAC agreed to pilot a set of Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 5 opportunities for managers to establish relationships among colleagues, facilitate the exchange information, and begin to explore mechanisms for managing and sharing knowledge valuable to the IW LAC community. In July 2001 an electronic forum (“GEF-IW-LAC”) was launched to address international waters in LAC. Sponsors include the GEF, its International Waters Learning Exchange and Resource Network (IW:LEARN), the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations Environment(UNEP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. Archives of this ongoing forum are accessible at http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/gef-iw-lac. About forty practitioners from fourteen countries have participated in GEFIW-LAC. The electronic forum launched with multi-lingual facilitation (English, Spanish and Portuguese) for two months of intensive dialogue (July and August 2001). During the first two weeks, participants introduced themselves, described their projects and discussed common objectives and interests that they wanted addressed in the forum. Then participants identified general problem areas and common needs for information, knowledge, experience, and resources, and began exploring how those problems and challenges have been or could be successfully addressed by GEF-IWLAC projects. Finally, during the last two weeks of August 2001, participants began to discuss ways to store and communicate lessons learned, and identified priority areas for further work at a two-day forum held thereafter in Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil) on September 1 and 2, 2001. Hosted by GEF/IW:LEARN, UNEP’s Programme Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC) and OAS, the first Inter-American Water Resource Managers Forum brought together about thirty leaders of national and transboundary water resource projects of the UNEP and the Global Environment Facility, including a number of participants from the electronic forum. Continuing the GEF-IW-LAC efforts, the main goals of this ‘face-to-face’ meeting were to identify common objectives, issues and needs; share experiences and lessons learned; discuss opportunities to improve water resources management throughout LAC; and provide “from the field” insights to inform international water policy meetings. The remainder of this paper describes the common challenges, emerging priorities and main recommendations identified by the LAC managers during the Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 6 GEF-IW-LAC electronic forum and the first Inter-American Water Resource Managers Forum. Common Challenges and Emerging Priorities The managers that participated in the forums emphasized that success of LAC transboundary water projects requires addressing an array of challenges. These challenges fit into five critical areas: (1) the importance and complexity of international waters, (2) institutional frameworks, (3) public participation and project ownership, (4) project viability and continuity, and (5) knowledge sharing. The following section presents the key aspects of each of these areas. 1. The Importance and Complexity of International Waters Participants agreed that the significance and complexity of transboundary water management is not sufficiently acknowledged by the decision-making community at the global, regional and national levels. There is a need to articulate a message conveying the need for more appropriate human and financial resources to address the challenges posed by international waters. While IW management is intricately related to other aspects of nationally and globally recognized problems, such as biodiversity and land degradation, it has not received sufficient attention in order to promote sustainable development. Solving problems for a particular economic sector, jurisdiction or place may result in new, larger problems if the interconnectedness of the transboundary system is not adequately considered. Thus, participants recurrently expressed the need to conceive IW projects from a comprehensive perspective that incorporates causal chains, feedback processes and thresholds in natural, economic and social dimensions of watersheds. 2. Institutional Frameworks The existing institutional frameworks for addressing water projects present several difficulties for an adequate management of a resource that cuts across national and disciplinary borders. Conflicting interests are dispersed across a number of governmental agencies, many of which have missions that do not favor a comprehensive view of water processes, lack personnel trained in multiple disciplines Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 7 or in facilitating dialogue across disciplines or organizations, or are very sensitive to changes in the political landscape. Managers emphasized the need to establish a legal framework for managing international waters. There is no clear correspondence between the geographic scale of water problems and the area of influence of institutions attempting to solve them. Different levels of governance (transboundary, national, state and local) do not innately facilitate the adoption of sound approaches to complex problems until vertical and horizontal integration is pursued. This integration can be particularly challenging in international projects where neighboring countries have different constitutional arrangements between central government, provincial states and localities (e.g. federal vs. unitary arrangements). There is usually inadequate integration between different water-relater policies, programs and projects. This amounts to a fragile institutional arrangement that generates disputes over project ownership and control during planning and implementation stages, sometimes at the expense of consensus and joint implementation of activities. Such lack of articulation between institutions may result in ‘perverse’ incentives, promoting practices that impede the sustainable management of water resources. Examples of such practices include deforestation, agribusiness with intense use of agrochemicals, urbanization in flood-prone areas, and other forms of land use conversion with potential negative impacts on water resources. Inadequate law enforcement and varying levels of compliance regarding pollution control, zoning and other forms of regulation tend to aggravate these problems. Deregulation and privatization may also challenge transboundary water management. In a region where natural resource decisions are increasingly left to the ‘invisible hand’ of expanding competitive markets, there is concern that profitoriented practices may result in inequitable access to and degradation of shared water resources. Similarly, the tendency to deregulate and move away from long-term planning may negatively influence integrated risk management. 3. Stakeholder Participation and Project ‘Ownership’ According to participating LAC IW managers, existing institutional frameworks appear to provide insufficient mechanisms for incorporating local communities’ perspectives into project definition and management. The managers Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 8 convened in Foz do Iguaçu agreed that public participation deserves to be considered as a critical regional issue on its own right. The integration of priorities and interests of various stakeholders is complex, particularly with respect to public participation and stakeholders’ sense of ownership of projects. Despite growing awareness of the importance of public involvement, there is still a lot to learn about how to best address this issue. The range of challenges is diverse: Sometimes local communities do not agree with the definition of problems as presented by government agencies. In other cases, key official institutions are not included in the project development process from the beginning, leading to a ‘lack of ownership’ that often results in insufficient organizational support. On the other hand, a very broad and ambitious process of public participation and stakeholder involvement tends to lead to a ‘wish list’ of initiatives that is, as a whole, well beyond technical or financial viability. Furthermore, if the process is not carried out carefully and openly, participation initiatives may backfire. Managers agreed that there is a lack of experience in this realm, and that there is a need to develop or adopt mechanisms that can successfully generate a constructive dialogue among interested parties. 4. Project Viability and Continuity The existing framework of project development does not sufficiently contribute to continuity and sustainability of transboundary waters projects. On the contrary, by setting different implementation stages with pronounced time gaps between them, it appears to be very difficult to maintain the commitment required to successfully carry out transboundary water projects. The viability and continuity of project development and implementation is seriously threatened by the hiatus generated between phases. During the time when next steps are being evaluated by the GEF, the project is stalled: momentum is lost, the public looses confidence in the process, and technical experts and managers are likely to abandon the project to pursue other, safer employment options. Frequent changes in personnel also have a profound negative effect on projects. Given the complexity of transboundary water projects, it is essential to set up a stable implementation structure across the lifetime of the project. Funding from non-GEF sources can also be threatened by the hiatus. Funding allocations are very sensitive to changes in the perception of potential success or Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 9 failure to ensure the continuity of projects. In this sense, forum participants highlighted the importance of GEF support for triggering political backing and keeping the process alive. In instances where GEF funding is uncertain, project continuity is most vulnerable. As one participant asserted: “this constitutes an impasse that kills projects.” 5. Knowledge Sharing Participants repeatedly expressed that, until this forum, they were unaware of how common their problems were across GEF-sponsored IW projects in LAC. Managers tend to feel isolated due to the lack of communication channels between projects and the absence of adequate mechanisms for knowledge sharing. Lessons learned form previous experiences in water management tend to remain within projects and are for the most part lost thereafter. There is no institutional memory, no adequate mechanisms for information management, and little articulation between GEF and projects in order to collect, store and disseminate successful practices. Several participants highlighted the value of experience sharing across GEF projects. They expressed their concern regarding the need to have access to methodologies for transboundary diagnostic analysis, addressing not just water resources, but also environmental, institutional, legal, economic, social and cultural aspects which may challenge project definition and implementation in the context of regional development. Where these methodologies exist, managers have difficulty finding them. A related topic of concern was the gap between the potential offered by new technologies and the managers’ ability to learn about and incorporate them into their projects. Rapidly evolving tools such as remote sensing, geographic information systems and dynamic modeling could greatly contribute to transboundary water projects. Knowledge-sharing mechanisms would be a very appropriate way for the LAC IW community to explore how to use them. In essence, there is a need to develop a learning culture, where managers actively learn and teach each other by sharing experiences. Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 10 Recommendations The following recommendations emerged as a result of the electronic forum discussion and the Foz do Iguaçu meeting: 1. The Importance and Complexity of Transboundary Water Issues International development agencies and their country-level partners must remain committed to addressing transboundary water issues as a high priority. Transboundary waters are deeply related to essential aspects of sustainable development, from environmental protection to social development. Increased institutional and financial support is needed. • By their nature, transboundary water projects can foster interactions within and across borders among local and national governmental agencies, universities, NGOs, industry and the population at large, serving as a catalyst for the integration of multiple efforts and initiatives in their region of • influence. Countries should take advantage of the immense potential of international waters management for enhancing dialogue across borders. Peace and international cooperation are important externalities that should be taken into account when judging the benefits of these endeavors. Conversely, inadequate • management of water resources is likely to perpetuate conflict. Pursuit of proactive, integral approaches to transboundary water issues can help foster the cooperation needed to prevent conflicts and to devise better solutions. 2. Institutional Frameworks: Governments and international agencies involved in IW projects should work together to harmonize laws, improve existing institutions and, where necessary, create new ones in order to facilitate coordination of transboundary, national, provincial and local decision-making about water resources. • Establish a clear legal framework for managing international waters. Develop international agreements to foster action and investment in transboundary watersheds. Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers • 11 Begin defining the institutional framework for water projects from their conception and initial negotiation stages. Conceive transboundary water projects as substantively integrated, multi-national projects, and not as the sum • of several nationally defined sub-projects. Pursue vertical and horizontal integration of different levels of governance (transboundary, national, state and local.) in order to facilitate interdisciplinary • approaches to complex problems. • area of influence of institutions attempting to solve them. Seek correspondence between the geographic scale of water problems and the Foster consensus and joint implementation of activities. Organize frequent conferences, meetings and other opportunities where institutions can interact to jointly identify problems and explore alternatives, thereby enhancing • cooperation over competition. • transboundary water issues. • resulting in problems for the sustainable management of water resources. Take into account environmental, economic and social aspects of Analyze and address the existent policies and programs that promote practices Promote adequate law enforcement and compliance in issues affecting water resources, particularly regarding pollution control and land use conversion. • Promote transparency in decision-making processes. Explore options for charging for environmental services provided by watersheds, but ensure that market-oriented reforms do not result in reduced accessibility to water resources for the most vulnerable sectors of the • population. Give a more prominent role to long-term planning, especially in areas where impacts are potentially irreversible such as urbanization, infrastructure • development and natural resource management. Academic institutions should strengthen curricular components addressing the interdisciplinary nature of water issues as well as institutional realities and needs. 3. Stakeholder Participation and Project ‘Ownership’ Agencies in charge of project development and implementation should incorporate public participation and stakeholder involvement across the life cycle of Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 12 the IW project. This can greatly contribute to the success of water projects by both enriching the range of perspectives considered in the process and by developing a sense of ‘ownership’ that ensures commitment to achieve goals. • • Engage stakeholders in a meaningful manner. Include public participation from the very beginning, before project goals are fully defined. Emphasize and support processes and their continuity. Conceive projects as opportunities to articulate other related activities in the region. Strengthen • community and institutional agreements throughout the project cycle. Acknowledge that broad public participation is desirable. In order to effectively incorporate it in the process, efforts should focus on key instances of project development, where critical decisions need to be taken. This is when communities and institutions need to examine and validate the way in which • problems and solutions are framed. Consolidate mechanisms for participation at the institutional level. In order to ensure the continuity of the process, projects must seek to develop • commitment in addition to providing resources. Examine suitability of different public participation approaches. Develop pilot projects to test both intervention strategies and stakeholder involvement • methodologies. Give relevance to place-specific social and cultural issues related to water management. Tailor subprojects to include gender/cultural/ethnic considerations. Emphasize the need for components aimed at addressing the • most vulnerable sectors of the population. Inform and educate the public through outreach activities, bulletins, etc. Environmental education and awareness can greatly contribute to project success, as well as benefit the local communities. Encourage communication among stakeholders and institutions. 4. Project Viability and Continuity International agencies and national governments involved in IW projects should establish continuity in funding and, by extension, in human resources to ensure project sustainability and viability. Idle time between project phases should be Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 13 avoided in order to maintain momentum, retain public confidence and preserve knowledgeable personnel. • • Explore within GEF ways to ensure and adequate level of project continuity. Prevent project momentum from being lost between implementation phases. Create smaller fund or other mechanisms for providing resources between phases in order to keep at least public participation and project people • cohesively active until larger funds arrive. Develop strategic alliances between the international lending community, governments and the private sector. Investigate with national agencies and international lending institutions different financial packages in order to ensure • the stability of the project process. • project-related agencies. • carry on transboundary water projects. Provide stability for the project team. Establish legal and institutional frameworks that promote a stable structure for Identify and support people and teams with the skills and leadership needed to Conceptually, agencies should think of providing financial resources not merely to obtain the products expected from a project but, more fundamentally, to support the processes that lead to those products. 5. Knowledge Sharing Increase opportunities for knowledge-sharing among transboundary water managers. Set up mechanisms to generate, store and distribute lessons learned. Promote dialogue and interaction which includes both projects and their partners. • Develop mechanisms for interaction and exchange among projects and between projects, and funding, implementing and executing agencies. Contribute to the creation of formal and informal spaces for dialogue among transboundary water managers. Highlight the value of knowledge-sharing • activities across GEF projects. Foster a learning culture in international waters, where managers actively learn from and teach each other by sharing experiences. Develop networks for North-South and South-South learning partnerships. Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers • 14 Document results of processes in a way that provides insights to other projects that may face similar situations. Conceive pilot projects keeping in mind the • potential for replicability. Create a virtual space for a GEF-IW-LAC knowledge community where the forum can be sustained and key information can be stored and retrieved, such as best practices databases, profiles of IW projects throughout the world, bookmarks with useful water resources links, lists of experts in different • fields, methodologies, calendar of events, etc. Pursue the continuity of the dialogue initiated in the Inter-American Water Resource Managers Forum. Conclusion In conclusion, Latin American and Caribbean managers involved in transboundary water projects agreed that the IW community should commit to the following priority areas: 1) Make of international waters a high priority in the global environmental arena, seeking increased institutional and financial support; 2) Foster the development of institutional frameworks that facilitate the integration of activities across national and disciplinary boundaries; 3) Enhance stakeholder involvement and public participation throughout the project; 4) Ensure continuity in funding and human resources between implementation phases for project sustainability and viability; and 5) Develop mechanisms for knowledge sharing among transboundary water managers in order to facilitate communication of experiences and lessons learned. The management of IW resources demands a continued dialogue among practitioners in order to identify common needs, share experiences and explore ways to better deal with the complexities of natural and socioeconomic systems in constant, dynamic interaction through water. The recommendations laid out in this report, developed by LAC IW managers, attempt to increase understanding and capacity in the region in order to adequately address the technical, social, legal, and ecological issues facing transboundary waters. It is anticipated that these ideas, once available to Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 15 the global IW community, will contribute to the discussions aimed at benefiting transboundary water management in the LAC region and worldwide. Acknowledgements The ideas presented in this paper are the result of the active participation and fruitful discussions of more than fifty managers from the LAC region who were involved in the forums and got this knowledge community started. Appendix I lists these contributors. The following organizations were essential in making these efforts possible: The Global Environment Facility (GEF), the International Waters Learning Exchange and Resource Network (IW:LEARN), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC), the Organization of American States (OAS), the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 16 ANNEX I: List of Participants GEF-IW-LAC electronic forum (July-August 2001) and Inter-American Water Resource Managers Forum (Foz do Iguaçu, Septemer 1-2, 2001) NAME ORGANIZATION or PROJECT / COUNTRY 1) Gricel Acosta CITMA / Cuba 2) Luiz Amore Guaraní Aquifer / Brazil 3) Angela Andrade Min. Medio Ambiente / Colombia 4) Maria Apostolova Organization of American States (OAS) 5) Patricia Aquing SIDS / Santa Lucia 6) Alejandro Arcelus Guaraní Aquifer / Uruguay 7) Maureen Ballestero Tempisque / Costa Rica 8) Enrique Bello OAS 9) Jorge Bonilla Procuenca San Juan / Costa Rica 10) Alberto Calcango RIGA 11) Arilde de Camareo RIGA 12) Jaime Cantera FREPLATA / Uruguay 13) Juan José Castro Procuenca San Juan / Costa Rica 14) Jerod Clabaugh IW:LEARN 15) Dag Daler Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA) 16) Alfred Duda Global Environment Facility (GEF) 17) María Josefa Fioriti Guaraní Aquifer / Argentina 18) Frederico Freitas Alto Paraguay / Brazil 19) Gabriel Gaite Uzgueda Bermejo River / Bolivia 20) Moises Gomes Sao Francisco / Brazil 21) Pablo Gonzalez OAS 22) Bernhard Griesinger OAS 23) Joaquín Gutierrez SIDS / Cuba 24) Marea Hatziolos World Bank 25) Andrew Hooten AJH Environmental Services 26) Andrew Hudson United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-GEF 27) Noel Jacobs MesoAmerican Barrier Reef System (MBRS) / Belize 28) Tim Kasten SIDS / Jamaica Transboundary Waters Management: Perspectives from LAC Managers 17 29) Lilian Laborde Min. Relaciones Exteriores / Argentina 30) Fernando Larroza Dir. Recursos Hídricos / Paraguay 31) Enrique Leff United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)-Region of Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC) / Mexico 32) Javier Lopez Medina Procuenca San Juan / Nicaragua 33) Luz Marina Mantilla Putumayo / Colombia 34) Marcia Marques GIWA 35) Janot Mendler GEF-IW:LEARN / USA 36) Jorge Montaño Guaraní Aquifer / Uruguay 37) Ana Mugetti RIGA 38) Ulises Munaylla CPPS / Peru 39) Jorge O’Connor d’Arlach Bermejo River / Bolivia 40) Mauro Pereira BRH / Brazil 41) Daniel Perna OAS 42) Mario Revollo Lake Titicaca / Bolivia 43) Jonathan Ryan MBRS / Mexico 44) Dann Sklarew GEF - IW:LEARN / USA 45) Pablo Suarez GEF - IW:LEARN / Argentina 46) Jeffrey Thornton Environmental Management Services, Ltd. 47) Isabelle Vanderbeck UNEP-GEF 48) Ramon Vargas Adm. Prov. Agua Chaco / Argentina 49) Celso Velazquez Guaraní Aquifer / Paraguay 50) Roberto Villas-Boas CETEM / Brazil 51) Francisco von Wuthenau Bermejo River / Argentina