ABSTRACT
Developing sustainable governance strategies for water resources is of critical importance for the twenty-first century. Large-scale assessments of current governance strategies have demonstrated the unsustainable use patterns and pollution of global water resources they produce (Gleick 1993; Postel et al. 1996; UNEP 2006). The challenges to developing sustainable strategies have been receiving greater attention over the past fifteen years. International networks and programs on water governance have been developed, such as the Stockholm World Water Week and the World Water Forum. This mobilization at the global scale has drawn attention to the status of water resources and has helped improve knowledge in the field. We now know that worldwide water consumption rises twice as fast as population grows, often in places that are already experiencing water stress, i.e., water use exceeds natural supply (UNESCO 2006: 116); more than a billion people worldwide lack access to potable water and twice as many do not have basic sanitation; some 4,900 people die each day as a result of diarrhea (UNDP 2006). The ecological consequences of rising consumption have been equally severe: around the world, rivers, lakes and canals are severely polluted and the services they provide are compromised (UNEP 2006; UNESCO 2006). Two particularly influential global networks have emerged and are pro-
posing solutions to solve these water-related problems. Perhaps the greatest programmatic focus is provided by the United Nation’s announcement of the International Water Decade from 2005-15 (The Decade). The Decade’s objectives stress that greater priority should be given to the waterrelated Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Specifically these goals are that by 2015 the proportion of people who are unable to reach or afford safe drinking water and the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation should be halved. In parallel with The Decade has been the emergence of new ideas for water governance, termed integrated water resources management (IWRM). Officially coined by the Global Water Partnership, “IWRM aims to ensure the coordinated development and management of water, land, and related resources by maximizing economic and social welfare without compromising the sustainability of vital
environmental systems” (GWP 2000). The term has been incorporated in water planning strategies and policy around the world as a laudable goal for water governance. However, operationalizing the term has proven to be much more of a challenge (Biswas 2004). Table 10.1 compares the key features of IWRM with to the characteristic approaches of traditional water management (Partzsch 2007: 68-72). Since the attention to the global nature of water resources paid by the
Johannesburg Summit of 2002, water has gained an increasingly prominent place on the foreign policy agenda of many countries. However, the scope of academic inquiry in the issue area of water foreign policy is rather undeveloped and has largely consisted of explorations of environmental insecurity due to decreasing water quantity and quality and the public health impacts of these trends (Starr 1991; Lewis 2007). There are three focal areas for assessing issues related to water foreign policy: (1) quantity (where water is located and where it is distributed to in what volume); (2) quality (the degree to which water is polluted, saline, or bacteria and nutrientloaded); and (3) infrastructure (the means by which water is transported and delivered to and from users). Translating these issue areas into an effective foreign policy program for water resources is a new and critically
important area of water governance. Incorporating the complexity of water resources and governance into these programs and strategies is still in its infancy. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview and analysis of the water
foreign policy of the United States and the European Union, two bodies of government that play a significant role in this emerging field. Specifically, we demonstrate the processes through which institutional structures interact with emerging ideas and bureaucratic interests in shaping water foreign policy. For example, while domestic water policies in the US, and EU policies for Member States, are largely integrated into the environmental policy agenda, the degradation of water eco-systems is largely neglected in water foreign policy in favor of geopolitical interests and international development targets. In asking why this is so, we situate water foreign policy as a conduit between domestic and global developments in water governance. We draw from a state-centric theory of environmental foreign policy which asserts that bureaucratic politics compete over policy preferences and impact outcomes (Barkdull and Harris, this volume). We begin with the premise that the US and the EU are both significantly shaping the nature of water resource issues through hydrological, financial, and political means, and therefore their actions and ideas will have a significant impact on the world’s water resources. We develop concrete policy recommendations that could help move water foreign policy in these regions toward a more integrated and “green” policy stream.
