Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
disaster spots - areas abandoned as falling groundwater tables undermined the resource
base - causing considerable drama in, for instance, coastal Tihama and Al Munjelis.
What was once a lush and important date growing region has gradually become a
barren dune area, forcing local inhabitants to turn to marginal economic activities like
fishing. Largely responsible for the desertification in this area is the construction of an
upstreamdam that prevents groundwater recharge for the Al Munjelis area (Taher et al.
2012).
The response to severe groundwater threats in Yemen have come in the form
of intensive study and institutional development in the shape of the National Water
Resource Authority, its branch offices and the announcement of the National Water
Law. Yet, despite all of these initiatives, effective groundwater management or any
significant action on the ground have yet to be realised. While there have been checks
and balances in local conflicts between users, these have yet to result in substantial
improvement in groundwater governance regimes. The GP study aims at contributing
to these improvements by making different interests like upstream and downstream
interests more transparent. Specific topics to be considered in this are the role of
conflict in catalysing cooperation, the vigour of local governance and the role of
formal regulation, and adaptation to extreme scarcity. A video series has been com-
pleted for dissemination among farmer groups and local players to stimulate debate
on groundwater conflict and cooperation.
5.5 THE ROLE OF POLITICS
Politics is regarded either as 'what politicians do' or as 'activity through which people
make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live' (Heywood 2004:
4-5). A division has to be made between general politics and politics as practised by
those appointed or elected. The decision-making processes can be analysed at different
levels, from international to local. However, the political decision-making process is
often considered to be a black box. Many theories exist about what happens inside this
box and how decisions are made (e.g. the stream model, garbage can model, barrier
model) (Tromp 2007). So too, the political black box is further influenced by historical,
economic and social factors, among many others, that exist outside of the box (GP
Consortium 2012).
Political theories of natural resource management have several important themes,
but two themes are recurrent: 'political interest' and 'political will' (Mollinga 2008).
Political interest describes the positions of those that can influence or have political
power as having an interest in the way resources are allocated and used. Political will
describes the agenda of the political leadership and their engagement in resource man-
agement. This political will can be seen as something that can be influenced by lobbyists
and agenda setting, and is therefore more flexible than political interest. There are two
different dimensions behind these two themes: the state (and those persons that are
close to the centre of power) as a player and the state as a guardian (taking care of
public interest in a selective and sometimes limited way). Though the balance between
the two dimensions is different for various broad types of state or enabling environ-
ments, as will be discussed later, they nevertheless co-exist and are interdependent.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search