SDiP Water

UN Water 2024

Loads of stats on progress + access gaps. Achieving universale safe drinking water by 2030 requires a sixfold acceleration in current rates, sanitation requires a fivefold. Only 43 of 150 member states sharing transboundary waters have operational arrangements covering 90%+ of resources

Boretti + Rosa 2019

Aggregate targets were always unrealistic given inadequate financing and weak governance institutions- the numbers (from the UN) represent institutional failure, not phyiscal constraints

2.2, 3.4, 1.7

Number (billions) of people who(1) lack safely managed drinking water (2) lack safetly managed sanitatoin (3) lack basic hygine services

Sierra Leone, 11

Name of nation with decent rain but only __ percent access

Biswas 2004

IWRM definition is amorphous, no agreement on what to intergrate, how, or by whom. In practice the concept will be exceedingly difficult to operationalise. Implemented in 18 countries with less than 30% effectiveness. Concept yet universally lauded due to donor fuding and advocacy- rather than delivery of results.

Giordano + Shah 2014

IWRM has become an ‘end in itself’, in some cases undermining functioning water management systems. Its monopoly in Global Water management discourse shuts out any alternatives. Empirical examples from India + China that demonstrate non-IWRM working. Message is: get on with pragmatic solutions.

Molle 2008

IWRM sounds attractive, and no one seems to be agaisnt it. This framing obscures political nature of resource management and how easily it (and IWRM) can be hijacked by powerful interests

Hoff 2011

WEF nexus foundational document. An intergrative approach to water, energy + food can enhance resource security by increasing efficency, reducing trade-offs, and improving governance across sectors. All things are linked and thus should be managed as such

Bhaduri et al 2016

Applying ‘Nexus Thinking’ to SDG implementation can identify co-benefits and also tradeoffs that sectoral planning misses

Simpson + Jewitt 2019

Document the rapid take up of WEF nexus frameworks in policy practice- especially in water-scarce regions.

Al-Saidi + Elagib 2022

Argue that persistent data gaps and governance co-ordination challenges hold WEF nexus back, simply replicating challenges of IWRM

High Level Panel on Water 2017

Org. and year- Launched on the founation that water must be treated as a social good. Historically water is systematically undervalued in ways that subsidise the walthy and exclude the poor

Chan et al 2016

Expanded environmnetal valuation debate by proposing that humans assign 3 primary categories of values to nature: Intrinsic, Instrumental and relational. Intrinsic Value: The worth of nature inherent to itself, regardless of human utility. Instrumental Value: The utilitarian worth of nature for satisfying human needs, interests, and preferences. Relational Value: The importance of the meaningful relationships between people and nature, as well as among people through nature.

Watermarq

Company/Org that wants to use Ai model for dynamic, contextual water value discovery via shadow water pricing. Argue that users that extract the highest economic value (e.g. Data centers) are currently paying the lowest prices, while vulnerable informal market users pay highest marginal rate. Watermarq propose transfer value from high-economic-value users to users with greatest social neeed. Framework uses agentic AI to solve for user + context variable interdependancy. ‘Shadow prices’ are decision support for regulatory authorities, not pre-set prescriptions.

Sultana 2018

Water injustice results from interaction of historical, socioo-political and economic relations. Argues for democratisation of water governance to include marginalised voices

Ostrom 2010

Polycentric governance of CPRs. Lots of empirical proof of success. (however comes with critics (Dietz ‘23) (Cummings et al’ 20)

Milly et al 2008

Climate change has/should have changed te way we approach governance. We can’t treat water as a ‘stationary’ or ‘stable’ resource anymore. Infrastructure and policy must account for climate change

Pahl-Wostl et al 2012

Responding to Ostom and Milly et al practically, we need to have ‘adaptive governance’ as a practival response. Adapts to: local context, scale, relations, changing climate

Uptime Global 2023

Results basedcontracts for rural hand pump maintanence in Africa. SafeManzi model. Political economy problem: 40% of handpumps are non-functional, but donors and politicians prefer funding new construction for visibility and political clout. ___ pays for demonstrated result to fix for this: functionality, volumetric use, local revenue generation. Theyve manage to price this at only $1 per person per year

Smith School 2025

Attempts to scale up the SafeManzi (Uptime) model both spatially and in more fragile governance contexts e.g. Zambia