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| Proceedings of CapNet India Launch & 1st CapNet South Asia Country Coordinators’ Meeting 27 & 29, March 2004
NIAS, Bangalore, India. |
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Supported by
CapNet Global,
The Netherlands &
IWMI – GWP Advisory Centre,
Colombo |
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| Abbreviations |
| ASCI |
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Administrative Staff College of India |
CB |
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Capacity Building |
| CG |
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Core Group |
CWP |
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Country Water Partnerships |
| GWA |
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Gender and Water Alliance |
GWP |
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Global Water Partnership |
| IWMI |
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International Water
Management
Institute |
IWP |
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India Water Partnership |
| IWRM |
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Integrated Water Resources Management |
NIAS |
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National Institute of Advanced Studies |
| RCB |
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Regional Capacity Building |
RWP |
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Regional Water Partnerships |
| ToT |
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Training of Trainers |
WASH |
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Water Sanitation &
Hygiene |
| WSSCC |
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Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council |
WWN |
: |
Women and Water Network |
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With the support of CapNet Global and International Water Management Institute (IWMI)–Global Water Partnership (GWP) Advisory Centre, CapNet South Asia organized a three days’ Meeting at National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore, India from 27th to 29th March 2004. It was characterized by the participation of representatives from CapNet Global, Gender & Water Alliance (GWA) –another Associated programme of GWP, India Water Partnership (IWP), IWMI, UNICEF, Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), training institution like Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Country Coordinators from |
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| Ms. Revathy extending a warm welcome to all the participants |
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Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal & Bangladesh, Core Group members of India & experts in the field of Water Resource Management & the Core Group members of
SaciWATERs.
Followed by a warm welcome extended by the organizers – SaciWATERs – the key note address was delivered by Major General Paul, Controller, NIAS on behalf of the Director, NIAS. In his speech, he highlighted the involvement of NIAS in the water sector and emphasized that the institute is keen to provide the maximum support for the multidisciplinary, integrated approach to water resource
management.
He shared with the group that it has potential resource persons as well as related infrastructure facilities to extend support to any of the initiatives. The three days’ event had a defined mandate and it is to be appreciated that the agreed upon outcomes were very much encouraging because of the committed involvement and the intellectual inputs by the participants. A brief report of the proceedings is as follows: |
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Main Points of Discussion: All the sessions were lively and lot of thought provoking suggestions resulted from the discussions. Each session was facilitated by Resource Persons and moderated by the identified experts from among the participants themselves. The sessions were spread across for three
days.
Welcome Address by Dr. Jasveen Jairath
This initiative of SaciWATERs began a few years ago through humble efforts of personalized networking in the water
sector.
The role of SaciWATERs has been one of a facilitator for collaborative efforts towards CB, going far beyond the actual delivery of CB. Based on the premise that no one individual or institution has the capacity that is required for enabling the more integrated approaches to grounding water development, the necessity for collective effort was strongly recognized. Therein lies the need for networks that also enable extension of outreach of its partners. Each individual/institution as member of the network brings with them their own networks. The outreach of the collective thus progresses at an exponential
rate.
CapNets are conceptualized more as platforms to bring together people and organizations who are concerned with the policy and practice of water resource development and management. They are not visualized as implementing agencies for IWRM. The focus of network is also to bring about structural changes in the institutional systems for water management through corresponding CB. The underlying thrust is thus, develop capacities for a shift from sect oral approach to more integrated and interdisciplinary approaches to WRD. |
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Session 1
This session was mainly focused on the geographical networks, international partners and global thematic Capacity Building Networks. The main purpose of this session was to give an over view of the CapNet activities at the global level. Some issues like application of impact indicators, who are the Stakeholders and their role, technology transfer to whom, how to make it a demand responsive programme, benchmarking, Capacity Building (CB) for whom and what is the expected outcome of CB were raised during the session which were discussed and clarified in the subsequent
sessions.
Session 2
This was more of an information sharing session regarding the activities of SaciWATERs, which is hosting the regional Secretariat of CapNet South Asia. It was presented in a sequential order of past, present and future. It has coordinated various research activities, facilitated the formation of Country CapNets, networking with individuals and institutions, resource mobilization, gender mainstreaming with respect to Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), etc. One of the future thrust of action is on Regional Capacity Building (RCB); the proposal is under the final stage of its processing. There was a common suggestion from the participants that some tentative time frame have to be fixed for the proposed plan of action.
Session 3
This was a lead session for initiating the discussion on setting up the working guidelines for the structures created as part of CB Networks at Regional/country level. Lot of deliberations took place during the session and a Working Group was constituted to modify the Draft Guideline presented during the session. It was also agreed that the document has to be evolved over a period through application and it has to be vetted by a legal practitioner and also to be in line with the CapNet Global and GWP Guidelines. But the current document could be approved provisionally and it could be further refined through inviting suggestions through mails. |
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Session 5
This was mainly intended to share the potential of the Core Group (CG) Members of India
- both personal as well as institutional profiles. Followed by the sharing the CG members selected their Country Coordinator. It was made through nomination by one member & seconded by another. Dr. K.V. Jayakumar, Head, Water Environment Division, Dept. of Civil Eng., NIT , Warangal – 506004 was identified as the CapNet India Coordinator.
Due to pressing professional demands on Dr. jayakumar's time, the Core Group of CapNet India has decided that Dr. Smita Mishra Panda should take over the responsibility of the Coordinator with effect from May 2004. It was also decided that the Secretariat of Capnet India is to be located at IRMA. |
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Dr.
Jayakumar with
his expertise... |
Ms.
Thressiamma -
community efforts pay... |
Dr.
Rajeswari...
whys’ of Network? |
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Dr.
Javed...potential
of IIT, Gauhatti. |
Mr.
Suhas...networks
for advocacy |
Dr.
Palanisamy...
role of stakeholders |
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Dr.Smitha...
I RMA...
mainstreaming gender... |
Ms.Vasantha,
GUIDE...community
has tremendous potential. |
Dr.
Raju...BITS, Pilani -
full fledged support |
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Dr.
Bhatia , IIT Roorke...
with optimal support... |
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| Session 6 |
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The CapNet India was launched officially. The dignitaries present during theoccasion included Sri. Ramaswamy Iyer, Secretary (Retd.), MOWR & Mr. Lalith Patra, APO, Unicef Mr. Lalith Patra in his launch speech raised some concerns regarding the Networks. He cautioned
the group that there is a mushroom growth of networks that met with premature
deaths due to |
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| CapNet
INDIA Launch |
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lack of direction & proper coordination. He appreciated the efforts that are being made to bring together the various networks & assured all possible support to make the networks more vibrant & active. Sri. Ramaswamy Iyer extended his warm wishes to the CapNet India & reserved his valuable inputs for the next day. |
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| Session
7 |
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Mr. Ramaswamy Iyer enlightened the group by throwing some crucial issues that has to be deliberated during the course of the programme and thereafter. We are talking about “capacity-building for IWRM”. What is this IWRM? Whose capacity are we seeking to build? What kind of capacity? These are the preliminary
queries to be answered before translating the efforts into action.
(Ref. Annexure 2 |
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Mr. Ramaswamy
Iyer... with his inspirational message &
Ms. Kusum with her privilege of chairing the session... |
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for more details) Following Prof. Ramaswamy Iyer’s address, Dr. J asveen Jairath shared her apprehensions about the popular understanding of IWRM on the following grounds: One, the more mainstream depiction of IWRM presents water as a politically neutral entity. This appears to be unrealistic as water is a contentious issue with conflicting/competing interests by differential interest groups that get articulated in the political arena. A typical managerial approach to WRD considers alternative management scenarios as a panacea for the observed lapses. While mismanagement may partly account for poor performance of water projects – issues of monopolistic control over resources and resulting inequities in accessing the outputs are left beyond the pale of consideration. Exclusion of marginalized constituencies from the decision-making process remains extant in proposed solutions. This implies that in actuality pro-active efforts may be required to bring on board the representation of that segment of society who ‘get’ systematically marginalized as a result of socially instituted discrimination.
Although notions of ‘decentralization’ are deliberated upon and accepted as an avenue to accommodate the phenomenon of diverse interest representation, as noted above – it is understood more as an administrative and managerial decentralization that need to be distinguished from political decentralization. While the latter implies a control over decisions that enable effective control over resources – the managerial decentralization can go hand in hand with a high degree of political centralization – where the decisions (that reflect partial interests of those who monopolize control over natural resources)- are centralized but their implementation/execution maybe taken up in the periphery of a water scheme in an apparently autonomous
manner.
The challenge for capacity building for IWRM then would be to develop the negotiating capacities and skills of those left out of the process of official understanding, designing and executing actions for water resources so as to incorporate their agenda, interest and representation in the overall action plan. |
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Gender
dimension
Worst affected in the scenario of political neutrality are the poor women. In fact they suffer from the reinforced exclusion, not only from the natural resources such as water, but also and added on to it - is the gender based exclusion. There is a strong need for re-conceptualizing the politics, economics and technology of water from the perspective of the weakest in the social ladder, i.e., poor women. This is crucial for greater effectiveness of the strategy for gender mainstreaming or gender sensitization of the entire process of understanding, conceptualizing and practice of water. There is thus a pressing requirement for CB for more pro-poor water understanding that is at the same time a CB for imbibing a gender sensitive water
view.
Dr. Jairath, then proceeded to present Dr. Atem Ramsunder Singh’s message (Ref Annexture 4).
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