The final outcome of this project was the publication of a special issue of the journal Water Nepal: Water, Human Rights and Governance
Water related human rights and governance concerns are acute in the Third World. Rapidly declining groundwater levels and pollution disproportionately affect the poor and the solutions advocated by governments and international aid agencies tend to allocate available supplies to politically, socially and economically dominant social groups. In some cases, human rights questions are clearly involved. Should, for example, all people have a basic right to a minimum share in available water supplies? In many cases the poor don't, and as a result, bear tremendous economic and health costs. Furthermore, if management necessitates the establishment of private water rights allocated to individuals (as many argue), should society as a whole retain any rights to resources that until now have been a "common heritage?" These questions are of fundamental -- and direct practical -- importance to the daily livelihoods of many in the Third World. Resolving them is inherently a question of governance -- the processes and structures through which decision-making, implementation and enforcement occur in society. Many of the groups most affected by water management decisions have little ability to make their voices heard in forums such as the courts, government departments and the deliberations of multilateral donor agencies.
The objectives of ISET's Human Rights, Governance and Water Resources project are:
From a strategic
perspective we are focusing on the human rights dimensions of water management because
they are of fundamental importance and can serve as a key lever for catalyzing
local and international action. Governance issues are equally important because
they are a major factor determining whether or not effective and equitable
responses to water problems occur.
ISET and Nepal Water Conservation Foundation (NWCF) hosted an international meeting on Water, Human Rights and Governance in Kathmandu, Nepal, from 26 February to 2 March 2001. Although participants from diverse origins and frames of reference came mostly from South Asia, global and specific regional perspectives were well represented. Most of the papers presented at that meeting have been published as a special issue of NWCF’s journal Water Nepal: Water, Human Rights and Governance.