1. The scope of the topic of water and food security is very broad. Do you think that the V0 draft has adequately charted the diversity of the linkages between water and food security and nutrition? Is there important evidence or aspects that the present draft has failed to cover?
The report is the first within the CFS context to bring together the topics of water and food security and as such makes an important contribution to policy debates and fields of action. The scope is broad and the report comprehensive as it needs to be in order to cover the terrain.
An aspect which deserves further attention is the impact of different agricultural models on water resources. This is given only a cursory examination. Yet food crop monocultures use up to ten times more water than biodiverse agricultural systems. The water intensity and pollution associated with industrial agriculture and the increasing use of agro-chemicals should be recognised as problems demanding policy re-evaluation. Conversely, more emphasis should be given to water practices rooted in diversified, agro-ecological farming approaches as true leaders in sustainability.
2. Has the report adequately covered the diversity of approaches and methodological issues, in particular concerning metrics and data for water and food security? Which metrics do you find particularly useful and which not?
The report is fairly evenhanded in its diversity of approaches and methodological issues. The report correctly highlights the pressing issue of water stress and water scarcity and provides various figures to underline the urgent need for action and planning. Although it does mention that water scarcity has been induced by policy failures in addition to a number of other factors, this is an area that deserves further attention.
The engineering of scarcity through ecological irrational decision making such as the growing of water intensive biofuel crops in fragile ecosystems like the Tana River Delta in Kenya, the planting of industrial tree plantations which require high volumes of water, and the pollution and degradation of water through the push for Green Revolution style packages of agro-chemical inputs, all need to be brought in here.
But policy failures occur even before this as well through the human destruction of local environments e.g. through deforestation and the constant over-use of water resources, all of which reduce the water retentive ability of soils and vegetative cover. In extreme cases, this can affect entire river basins and lead to processes of desertification.
A more thorough examination of some of these issues could lead to some interesting conclusions and point towards other interventions such as reducing water demand and increasing water conservation and recycling efforts.
3. Food security involves trade of agricultural produce, and a virtual trade of water. Agricultural trade interact with water and food security in various ways, and differently for food importing countries, food exporting countries, water scarce versus water rich countries. Do you think the V0 draft has appropriately covered the matter?
The report brings in the concepts of the virtual trade in water and the water footprint as useful tools which illuminate the water embedded in products that form part of increasingly globalised supply chains. While this is to be welcomed, there are some concerns in the way these concepts are then used in the report.
The trade in virtual water should not be used to suggest an unproblematic exchange between water abundance and water shortage guided by the theory of comparative advantage. Rather, the complex linkages between meeting water demand in one region and the creation of water pressure and scarcity in another should be highlighted.
The trade in virtual water is rapidly transforming and transnationalising the waterscapes upon which local lives and livelihoods depend, especially as countries are increasingly seeking not only to trade in virtual water but also to ‘lock in’ access to water reserves by acquiring productive land with good access to water abroad. The case of Saudi Arabian investments in Africa has been well documented. While these lock ins and offshoring of production may help capital rich, water deficit countries to resolve their own water and food constraints, the impacts on local livelihoods and ecologies have often not been positive.
4. In this report, we considered the potential for an expansion of the right to water to also encompass productive uses. What kind of practical and policy challenges would this bring?
The recommendation of the report to expand the scope of the Right to Water to include also productive uses is most welcome. Water is essential for food production and the realisation of the right to adequate food and the achievement of a decent standard of living. Based on the indivisibility of human rights and the clear way in which water is already deeply intertwined in the daily lives and decision making processes of food producers (both small and large), an expanded approach tot the right to water is most logical.
As the report notes, this recommendation does bring with it many practical and policy challenges. Foremost among them, is how to determine priorities among competing uses of water between different sectors and different actors. Clearly these priorities and contestations are not easy to determine and resolve. In the human rights field, priority is given to the most vulnerable and marginalised. As elaborated in General Comment No. 15 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in ensuring sustainable access to water resources for agriculture to realise the right to adequate food, states shall give attention “to ensuring that disadvantaged and marginalised farmers, including women farmers, have equitable access to water and water management systems”.
Some countries have taken up this issue of prioritising water use and allocation according to human rights based criteria. Ecuador’s new constitution of 2009 for example affords priority to human consumption and to uses that guarantee food sovereignty and natural processes. Article 318 of the constitution stipulates that water resources shall be destined first to human consumption, then to irrigation to secure food sovereignty, then to ensure environmentally adequate levels of flow in the country’s rivers, and finally to other productive activities.
A second and related challenge is how to effectively link land tenure and water governance regimes through a consistent human rights based approach to these issues. The report could take a clearer position in this respect on the link between land grabbing and water grabbing. Water is a critical factor in land grabbing - both as a driver and as a target. It is determinant in shaping which lands are attractive for investment and which are not and often an investors’ control over land comes with a corresponding control over water. If prior and independent impact assessments are not carried out and local people’s water uses, management systems, and future needs are not adequately recognised, the danger exists that these land investments may negatively appropriate water resources, particularly in contexts marked by significant power inequalities. The need for careful land use planning, rigorous assessments of the impacts of land use changes and the transfer of user rights, and the application of human rights based principles such as non-discrimination, participation, and transparency are paramount.
Following on from this, an important expansion of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Water - as recommended in the report - is to track violations to the right to water. Developing qualified and reliable monitoring tools to track violations and impacts on the most vulnerable when their rights are under threat could be very powerful.
Finally, given the many challenges presented by this and other issues raised in the report and the lack of a global governance instrument on water, a very sound recommendation that the report makes is for the CFS to initiate an inclusive and participatory multi-stakeholder process to formulate International Guidelines on Water Management.
5. Which systemic actions/solutions/approaches would be the most effective to enhance water governance, management and use for food security?
What is needed above all is a just, democratic and human rights based approach to issues of water governance, management and use for food security.
The report correctly identifies the legal pluralism and the complexity across waterscapes and tenure regimes when it comes to governing for water for food security, noting that this legal pluralism can be both enabling and disabling but that in most instances it is difficult for local users to defend their claims. A key action to be taken, as recommended in the report, is thus to make the ‘invisible’ users of land and water (referring to indigenous peoples, fishers, pastoralists and small-scale food producers who largely lack formal access or titles to land and water) more visible in policy processes and programmes. Recognition and strengthening of customary, collective and informal systems of water management is therefore essential.
To illustrate the point on the vital contribution that a democratic and people rather than profit-centred models of water governance can make to food security:
While governments (both local and central) are still the main actors to provide water services and are the principal duty bearer to ensure access to water for all citizens, the absence of the government in the vast peri-urban and rural communities is the de facto reality in many countries, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Very often unofficial, autonomous community water systems have filled this gap to organise, run and provide water to community members. Such water systems are not only critical for subsistence and public health but also to sustain livelihoods including food production. There is a rich diversity among community systems, taking on different forms e.g. cooperatives and different names e.g. water committee in Bolivia and community aqueduct in Colombia. Their defining features is their autonomy, having their own norms and mandates to manage public goods.
In Columbia, there are 12,000 community aqueducts and 26% of the population is served by such community autonomous systems. Community aqueducts tend to be isolated (geographically and politically) and not-acknowledged or treated with hostility by local authorities and as a result often have little access to public financing. But the community aqueduct in La Sirena, the peri-urban and rural areas of the department of Valle del Cauca (outside of the city of Cali) is an empowering example of how a community aqueduct can contribute directly to the right to water and the creation of sustainable livelihoods. The aqueduct in La Sirena has built a partnership with the water workers’ union SINTRACUAVALLE (the public water company ACUAVALLE operating in the Valle del Cauca). Voluntary workers have provided technical support to the community aqueducts in La Sirena under the horizontal partnership agreement. Technical support includes knowledge on administrative management, water quality control and preserving water resources in the community where the water comes from. Keeping its autonomous character, the aqueduct in La Sirena has enhanced its capacity to extend and improve its services to the community. Importantly, the aqueduct has built its own water systems (infrastructure) with contributions (labor and finance) from community members and has built a democratic form of governance to sustain the system. La Sirena illustrates how a community aqueduct can contribute to the community’s livelihood (water and food production) especially when they receive appropriate external support. (Find more details at: http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/publication/labour-and-community...).
Similar positive examples exist elsewhere. In Tameis and Girardota in Colombia, local authorities have acknowledged community water systems (ACUATAMESIS and GIRAGUAS respectively) as water providers and supported them through the the allocation of public finance to upscale their water systems. This arrangement can be called public-community partnerships. In Bolivia, collaborations between water committees (community water operator) are emerging. San Miguel Km 4 Water committee and Habitat for Women in the Auxilidadora Community from one of the poorest neighbourhoods areas of Cochabamba have made a partnership to help each other and enhance their capacity. Now the women’s organisation is providing water to Auxilidadora community. (For more information, see the video at: http://www.tni.org/multimedia/all-one-and-one-all?context=599)
Community water systems are thus a key actor to tackle water and food insecurity in rural and peri urban areas which point the way for just, democratic and sustainable systems of water use and management.
Sylvia Kay