Water Governance in the SDG Era - An Analysis of National Commitments to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

Abstract: The 21st century is marked by the forecast of a frightful set of crises caused by anthropogenic activities. Among them, an emerging water crisis threatens the existence of life on the planet. It is mainly triggered by a lack of good water governance. The concept of water governance refers to a range of different societal systems that are involved in the management of water resources, and the delivery of water services. However, these systems are threatened by several problems causing a mismanagement of water resources, involving corruption, deficits of democratization, or inequalities. This study examines commitments to improved water, sanitation, and hygiene provided by the Sanitation and Water for All partnership through a qualitative content analysis in order to allow an insight in current goal-setting for improved water governance. In this study, we show that even though stakeholders across geographical regions and constituencies aim at efficient governance measures, they neglect the importance of the procedural factors of good governance, for instance participation or adaptiveness. Instead they mostly focus on the outcome. Further, the study reveals that the commitments lack timely and measurable components and often do not include allocation of budgets. Although stakeholders show their intention to commit to action and work collaboratively, they often lack long-term thinking. Against the background of emerging global challenges in the water sector, most stakeholders are not yet prepared to work efficiently with new forms of governance in order to establish sustainable and resilient systems. Nevertheless, multi-stakeholder partnerships provide a basis to start a learning journey and can help to facilitate capacity development and future literacy. This thesis reveals starting points for improvement, gives practical recommendations for action and further research directions, that are necessary to explore the differences between regions and constituencies further and improve the goal-setting process in the following years.