Women and community water supply programmes: An analysis from a socio-cultural perspective

Community water supply programmes are seen as instrumental in achieving the goal of ‘safe’ water for all. Women, a principal target group of these programmes, are to be benefited with greater convenience, enhanced socio‐cultural opportunities and better health for themselves and their families, provided through improved water facilities. Water supply programmes largely consist of three essential components, namely: technology, people and institutions. Although such programmes are intended to benefit women members of local communities, scant attention is paid to the impacts of the socio‐cultural context of the community on these programmes. This article explores the influence of social and cultural intricacies on the implementation of community water supply programmes, and assesses their effectiveness. The article offers important lessons for the design and implementation of this type of programme. It concludes that the local socio‐cultural context sets the stage for programme implementation, being a dynamic factor that determines actual access to water sources, more so than mere physical availability, which is often used as a criterion for programme performance. The article stresses the urgent need to integrate socio‐cultural factors as a fourth dimension in designing community water supply programmes, and suggests practical measures for enhancing the effectiveness of such programmes.     

Promoting equity in water access: the limits of fairness of a rural water programme in semi‐arid Mozambique

Bridging the water infrastructure gap has become a major policy concern. In rural areas of Africa, access to water is as much constrained by territorial coverage as it is by the poor conditions of water points due to the difficulty in mobilizing communities for repairs. This paper examines the equity considerations of a rural water and sanitation programme in a district of Mozambique, and their impacts on the achievement of the programme's objectives. Our analysis underlines the contradictions in the conceptualization of equity in the design, planning and implementation of the programme. Even an explicitly pro‐poor strategy can fall short of delivering equity. Our findings stress the fact that overlooking local perception of equity can have a direct impact on the ability of a community to ensure the maintenance of their water points. They call for a careful definition of equity in the design of water programmes, as well as closer attention to this criterion as a precondition to achieving the long‐term objective of the programme.     

Equity and productivity assessments in the Olifants River basin, South Africa

Emerging approaches to water resources development and management typically highlight equity and productivity as two main objectives. In the context of integrated water resources management within a river basin, managers and stakeholders often need a comparative assessment of different options for water augmentation and/or allocation. Pitting such options against predefined objectives, such as equity and productivity, requires an assessment of the effects that available options will have on these objectives. Available documentation indicates that not only does the interpretation of such objectives vary widely, but also the available methods for assessing equity and productivity run into significant limitations in the availability of adequate data. This limitation has largely kept decision makers from gaining a comprehensive overview of equity and productivity scenarios, whether within or across sectors, that could facilitate better‐informed decisions. To address this methodological gap, this article scrutinizes different notions associated with equity and water productivity, and limitations in prevalent assessment methods with the view to develop and demonstrate pragmatic methodologies for assessing equity and productivity in data‐scarce contexts. The discussion and findings are based on a review of relevant literature and empirical and consultative research work in the Olifants River basin in South Africa. The demonstrated methodologies for assessing equity and productivity, besides being useful in data‐scarce contexts, are insightful for initiating several policy measures and also for exploring the relationship between equity and water productivity.     

Water,Adaptation, and Property Rights on the Snake and Klamath Rivers1

Abstract: Water demand in a viable economy tends to be dynamic: it changes over time in response to growth, drought, and social policy. Institutional capacity to re‐allocate water between users and uses under stress from multiple sources is a key concern. Climate change threatens to add to those stresses in snowmelt systems by changing the timing of runoff and possibly increasing the severity and duration of drought. This article examines Snake and Klamath River institutions for their ability to resolve conflict induced by demand growth, drought, and environmental constraints on water use. The study finds that private ownership of water rights has been a major positive factor in successful adaptation, by providing the basis for water marketing and by promoting the use of negotiation and markets rather than politics to resolve water conflict.     

Editorial The Good,the Bad and the Bubbly

Biodiversity planners increasingly recognise the need for delivering action on a ‘wider countryside’, rather than on a purely site‐centred, basis. Ecological processes often take place at the ‘landscape scale’ and are not sufficiently accommodated within reserves, and a failure to reflect this in biodiversity planning has been one of the contributors to species and habitat decline. However, there are generally few powers to enforce compliance with spatial rural land‐use strategies, and biodiversity plans at the landscape scale must rely heavily on incentives, advice and goodwill. Not surprisingly, this results in a substantial gap between policy and implementation. One way of analysing the causes of, and potential solutions to, implementation failure is to examine the barriers to plan uptake. This paper addresses barriers to biodiversity action in three case‐study areas in terms of ‘force fields’, depicting the nature and strength of negative and positive influences on land managers and conservation staff. It is concluded that a clearer understanding of the nature of ‘barriers’ can lead to improved targeting on potential ‘bridges’ to a better future.     

Landowner equity in Papua New Guinea's minerals sector: Review and policy issues

The involvement of local communities as equity holders in major mineral resource developments dates back over a decade in Papua New Guinea. This article reviews the history and result of landowner equity at two of Papua New Guinea's major mines (Porgera and Lihir), with a particular focus on the contribution of these equity holdings to local sustainable development. It is found that while an equity holding can provide significant returns to a local community, it also exposes them to significant financial risk. A second major area of concern is the structures and instruments by which revenues generated from the equity are distributed and utilized within the local community. Further research and policy redirection is required before local equity holding can be viewed as making a significant contribution to local sustainable development.     

Transforming open mining pits into fish farms: Moving towards sustainability

The legacy of mining activities has typically been land ‘returned to wildlife’, or, at some sites, degraded to such an extent that it is unsuitable for any alternate use. Progress towards sustainability is made when value is added in terms of the ecological, social and economic well‐being of the community. In keeping with the principles of sustainable development, the innovative use of flooded open pits and tailings impoundments as commercial, recreational or ornamental fish farms should be considered in some locations, as it could make a significant contribution to the social equity, economic vitality and environmental integrity of mining communities. This article highlights the growing significance of aquaculture and explores the benefits and barriers to transforming flooded pits and impoundments into aquaculture operations. Among other benefits, aquaculture may provide a much‐needed source of revenue, employment and, in some cases, food to communities impacted by mine closure. Further, aquaculture in a controlled closed environment may be more acceptable to critics of fish farming who are concerned about fish escapes and viral transmissions to wild populations. Despite the potential benefits, aquaculture in flooded pits and impoundments is not without its complications — it requires a site‐specific design approach that must consider issues ranging from metals uptake by fish, to the long‐term viability of the aquatic system as fish habitat, to the overall contribution of aquaculture to sustainability.     

Community participation in the planning and management of cultural landscapes

The maintenance of valued landscapes often requires the active collaboration of local communities in their planning, management and sustainable development. This paper examines a variety of situations in which local stakeholders have actively participated in the protection and maintenance of ‘cultural’ landscapes. It reviews and interprets evidence on the ways in which central and local governments, non‐governmental organizations, interest groups and the wider public can collaborate in planning and managing cultural landscapes. Particular attention is given to: the role of stakeholders, participation by communities‐of‐interest and communities‐of‐place; the management of specific landscape features; and policy and funding frameworks. It is concluded that community‐based initiatives are unlikely to substitute for formal management of extensive protected areas, but that participatory approaches can be effective in more targeted situations.     

Alberta's oil sands reclamation policy trajectory: the role of tense layering,policy stretching,and policy patching in long-term policy dynamics

As the Canadian oil sands development matures, an increasingly important policy activity is reclamation. Reclamation has received limited attention compared with the broader discussion of oil sands expansion, however, and its past direction and future trajectory are unclear. Recent moves to reform the policy in Alberta have been interpreted simultaneously as a major change and a marginal adaptation to the existing framework. This article employs a historical-institutional perspective to help reconcile this debate and further understanding of changes to Alberta's oil sands reclamation policies over the past half century. It traces the factors and outlines the processes which have driven its evolution since 1963 with special attention paid to the 2011 Oil Sands Progressive Reclamation Strategy, the most recent attempt to reform oil sands reclamation policy. The article reveals a complex long-term pattern of policy development in which processes of ‘tense layering’ of new initiatives on top of old elements resulted in a constantly shifting policy landscape as existing policy instruments and settings were ‘stretched’ to cover new circumstances but failed to resolve tensions between successive policy layers. After 1993, however, a more reflective process was put into place in which policy feedback informed alterations intended to reduce or remove tensions between successive layers. Such a policy ‘patching’ process is shown to have helped resolve tensions associated with earlier stretching of the existing regime and adds to the vocabulary of more general studies of policy dynamics.     

Economic instruments for sustainable community development

Abstract

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the use of so‐called ‘economic instruments’ in environmental policy. Economic instruments influence the behaviour of economic agents by providing financial incentives for environmentally improved behaviour, or disincentives for damaging behaviour. This paper explores the use of economic instruments in the field of sustainable community planning and development. It does so in the wider context of how environmental economic policy is made. The focus of this paper is to examine the role of policy instruments in community planning, and to review the different types of instruments that are available to policy‐makers. Numerous examples of the various instruments at the community level are described. It is widely believed that policy making should occur at the lowest or most local level possible while maintaining effectiveness. A system of government that does not give adequate legal power to local governments, and does not allow local governments considerable flexibility in the use of funds, cannot be expected to achieve all community objectives. Central governments must give local governments permission to take measures towards sustainable community planning, even though that requires giving them power to address broader issues. At the same time, when issues that should be addressed at national and international levels are not addressed, local governments may be able to take action individually. Given the general reluctance (and perhaps inability) of governments at all levels today to consider non‐economic and, particularly, non‐market policy instruments, it is pragmatic as well as timely to improve our understanding of economic instruments for sustainable community development.     

Private Sector Participation in Urban Water and Sanitation Provision in Ghana: Experiences from the Tamale Metropolitan Area (TMA)

African governments, like most countries in the developing world, face daunting tasks in their attempts to provide effective and equitable water and sanitation services for their ever increasing urban populations. Consequently, the past few years have witnessed increased private sector participation in urban water and sanitation provision, as many African governments strive to improve access to water and sanitation services for their citizens in line with Millennium Development Goal 7 (MDG7). Since the early 1990s, the government of Ghana and many local authorities have entered into various forms of public-private partnerships in urban water and sanitation provision. This article examines the outcome of such partnerships using the Tamale Metropolitan Area (TMA) as a case study with the aim of providing policy guidelines for the way forward. The article argues that the public-private arrangement for water supply and sanitation infrastructure management in the Tamale Metropolis has done nothing that an invigorated public sector could not have possibly achieved. It concludes that there can be no sustainable improvement in water and sanitation provision without political commitment, stakeholder ownership, and strong support for community driven initiatives.     

Local economic situation,local environmental mobilization and local government environmental policy in Hungary

Studies of advanced capitalist societies have shown that relatively wealthy localities with organized environmental groups are able to avoid unattractive facilities. The aim of this article is to ask whether the same logic applies in Hungary, a middle-income ‘transition’ society. The focus is not on the formal legal powers of local governments but on some of the influences on local government environmental policy. Drawing on a survey of mayors, notaries and environmental officials in 600 local government units in Hungary (from Budapest to villages), it explores the relation between environmental group mobilization, environmental group influence and environmental policy. It is shown that there are systematic differences in environmental group mobilization between settlements of different types, and that these differences, together with differences in local economic situation, explain the differing levels of perceived influence of environmental groups on policy. The localities where perceived environmental group influence is greatest are identified and shown to be places where there are higher education institutions and a tradition of ‘civic culture’, or where the local government is using the environment as an asset as part of an economic development strategy. It is concluded that similar processes to those found in advanced capitalist societies exist in Hungary. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of Ownership in Environmental Performance: Evidence from Coalbed Methane Development

One way coalbed methane production differs from traditional oil and gas extraction is in the large quantities of produced water. This water must be disposed of for production to occur. Surface discharge has proven to be a low-cost alternative; regulations are in place to protect surface water quality. This paper investigates the effects of alternative ownership regimes on regulatory compliance. A unique dataset linking coalbed methane wells in Wyoming to water disposal permit violations is used to explore differences in environmental performance across severed and unified minerals. Empirical analysis of these data suggest that ownership does impact environmental compliance behavior. Most violations occur on split estate. Federal split estate wells have more severe violations, though not necessarily more of them. Federal unified wells performed best, with fewer and less serious violations. Wells on private land have more, though not necessarily more severe, violations. These results suggest some room for policy proposals accounting for alternative ownership regimes.     

Using public procurement to achieve social outcomes

The use of public procurement to achieve social outcomes is widespread, but detailed information about how it operates is often sketchy and difficult to find. This article is essentially a mapping exercise, describing the history and current use of government contracting as a tool of social regulation, what the author calls the issue of ‘linkage’. The article considers the popularity of linkage in the 19^th century in Europe and North America, particularly in dealing with issues of labour standards and unemployment. The use of linkage expanded during the 20^th century, initially to include the provision of employment opportunities to disabled workers. During and after World War II, the use of linkage became particularly important in the United States in addressing racial equality, in the requirements for non‐discrimination in contracts, and in affirmative action and set‐asides for minority businesses. Subsequently, the role of procurement spread both in its geographical coverage and in the subject areas of social policy that it was used to promote. The article considers examples of the use of procurement to promote equality on the basis of ethnicity and gender drawn from Malaysia, South Africa, Canada, and the European Community. More recently, procurement has been used as an instrument to promote human rights transnationally, also by international organizations such as the International Labour Organisation. The article includes some reflections on the relationship between ‘green’ procurement, ‘social’ procurement, and sustainable development, and recent attempts to develop the concept of ‘sustainable procurement.’     

The importance of skillful community leaders: understanding municipal pesticide policy change in Calgary and Halifax

This paper focuses on policy change under scientific uncertainty. This is done by exploring two case studies of Canadian pesticide policy evolution applied to Sabatier's ‘Advocacy Coalition Framework’. ‘Stakeholder’ and ‘narrative policy’ analyses are emphasised to understand pesticide policy changes in Calgary (public education without a restrictive by-law) and Halifax (restrictive by-law). The parallel case studies consist of qualitative interviews with members of pesticide policy advisory committees in each city and a content analysis of local newspaper articles. Key resources mobilised by coalitions to achieve their policy goals include skillful leadership, and the use by those leaders of the media to disseminate coalition narratives. Further, the context of policy change contributed to the scenarios whereby pro-by-law grassroots activists were particularly successful in Halifax and anti-by-law city employees were most influential in Calgary.     

Sustainable development and participatory practices in community forestry: the case of FUNDECOR in Costa Rica

This paper studies the emergence of one particular ‘new’ environmental policy instrument: disclosure of emission and pollution data. Disclosure is part of a relatively new sub‐set of regulatory measures, based on monitoring, transparency, citizen‐empowerment and accountability. It originated in the United States but has recently attracted international attention. The attractiveness of disclosure is obvious; it promises environmental improvement combined with strengthened environmental democracy and community empowerment. By analysing the experiences in the US, and the developments in the Netherlands, this paper seeks to assess the functioning and effectiveness of disclosure. The available empirical evidence suggests that disclosure has a positive impact on the environmental performance of industrial facilities as well as a democratising effect. It is argued that Dutch policy makers wrongfully assume that disclosure cannot work in the Netherlands. The consequence is that citizens are provided with little specific information that cannot be used to put pressure on polluters.     

The integration of regional environmental planning and physical planning in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands various fields of policy planning and decision making are related to the environment, of which physical land use planning and environmental planning are the most important. In the last 20 years the environmental effects of production, mobility and consumption in this densely populated country have increased. The location and land use of economic activities have therefore become a main concern for environmental policy which has as its aim the improvement and conservation of the quality of the natural and human environment. The prospects for a better co‐ordination and integration of the two policy ‘tracks’ have become a matter of political, scientific and public concern. In some regions the government has started experiments with more integrated environmental policy and management. This paper discusses some of the possibilities and limitations of this regionally oriented policy against the background of a more effective environmental policy, especially in two cases—a rural area in the province of Gelderland and the region of Schiphol Airport.     

A tale of ‘fat cats’ and ‘stupid activists’: contested values,governance and reflexivity in the brno railway station controversy

ABSTRACT

The article explores one of the biggest controversies over sustainability in modern Czech history, a protracted conflict over whether the Brno railway station should be re-built in a new location. By examining the language of the interaction between a ‘modernizing discourse’ and a ‘sustainability discourse’, the article highlights reflexivity as analytic enterprise that bares the governance dimension of policy conflicts. The reflexive analysis focuses on how actors justify their positions, how they distinguish themselves from their opponents and how they express trust in their own group. It reveals that both discourses are not only related to the re-location issue per se, but that they entail contested notions of legitimate knowledge and modes of governance. Since such power contest is common in sustainability controversies, the reflexive analysis suggests a novel analytical agenda for addressing policy conflicts in sustainability issues.     

'People, planet and prosperity': The determinants of humanity's environmental footprint

Environmental or ‘ecological’ footprints have been widely used in recent years as indicators of resource consumption and waste absorption on the basis of biologically productive land area required per capita with prevailing technology. Such footprints represent a partial measure of the extent to which the planet, its regions, or nations are moving along a sustainable development pathway. They vary between countries at different stages of economic development and varying geographic characteristics. The determinants of environmental footprints in some 113 countries from around the world have been evaluated. Dimensional analysis techniques from engineering and the physical sciences are employed to determine the relative significance of population density, economic wealth, and intensity of pollutant emission. Variations about the resulting ‘power‐law’ correlation suggest the extent to which individual nations are currently frugal or profligate in terms of their resource use and environmental impacts. The scatter associated with footprints, or closely related parameters, also indicates the uncertainty inherent within the international datasets needed to compute them, as well as differences in local climate and terrain. Nevertheless, national footprints alert humanity to the necessity of living within the regenerative capacity of the biosphere in order to ensure ‘environmental sustainability’.     

The concept and measurement of mineral reserves and resources

The distinction between an exploitable and a non-exploitable mineral deposit is dynamic, varying as a function of changing economic and technological factors. A conceptual framework is proposed: ‘reserves’ are restricted to known currently exploitable deposits; ‘known resources’ are reserves plus currently non-exploitable deposits; ‘total resources’ are known resources plus all deposits not yet discovered. The short-term inadequacy of some mineral reserves requites a policy of accelerated mineral exploration and rapid development of new exploration techniques. Future problems could be avoided if the nature of resources is recognized and new mineral extraction and processing techniques for lower grade and unconventional mineral deposits are developed.