World Water Day, UgandaAt a time when water – and its impact on livelihoods and economic progress – is an ever-pressing issue on the world stage, the ability of governments, cities, municipalities, rural communities, private enterprise and civil society to mobilise its collective skill and financial resources to make progress is fundamental to making much-needed progress: effective, efficient and sustainable interventions coupled with clear ownership of the various processes for water governance are vital.

We have a long history of strengthening institutions, though Project Implementation Units, training programmes, and a wide range of capacity development programmes.

But institutions need a solid framework within which to work effectively. To be effective they must be underpinned by sound legislation. Here, we have helped to make valuable progress: the Chinese government now has a new water law as a result of our work in 2002. This has provided a strong platform for the major work that we are now doing to support stronger water policy development and governance in China. It also builds on successful design and implementation programmes to strengthen the institutions responsible for water resources management in Uganda and Malawi.

We are strong believers in promoting management systems that foster and facilitate ownership and responsibility where it belongs. Thus our recent work on transboundary water management in seven countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States had a strong theme of building on existing capabilities and strengths, promoting cross-border dialogue and constructive exchange of views, and engagement with a wide variety of stakeholders.

This engagement with stakeholders – in another case farmers – was a strong lever in influencing the Nepalese government’s policy of irrigation. Building on years of involvement in irrigation infrastructure development in Nepal we were able to identify and then secure funding for three years of action-oriented research on strengthening the accountability of water managers to irrigation water users there. Now complete, with proven results on the ground, this work has been widely disseminated in the country and beyond.

As part of the process of decentralising government in many countries there has been increasing emphasis on enabling municipalities – particularly small ones – to develop their own infrastructure improvement capability. Quite often this involves accessing loan, donor or even private sector funding. Municipalities cannot actively engage in this process without understanding the project cycle and project preparation process, and the requirements of supporting financial institutions. From an earlier base in supporting training programmes for municipalities seeking financial assistance for environmental infrastructure in Romania we are now engaged in the pilot phases of a wider programme aimed at enabling collective project development by groups of small and medium-sized towns there.

On a larger scale, we have been supporting good governance and corporate development in water utilities in Russia for almost 10 years, notably at St Petersburg.

Finally, Mott MacDonald is a Founder Partner in the United Kingdom‘s Partnership for Environmental Cooperation in Europe (PECE). This champions the cooperation between the public and private sectors and civil society, and together with an enterprising Russian partner we have just started a small PECE project in Southern Russia.