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- Convenors:
-
Pamela Katic
(University of Greenwich)
Antonia Sohns (McGill University)
June Po (Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich)
Mariella Bazán (Health without Limits Peru)
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- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Land, water and development
- Location:
- C429
- Sessions:
- Friday 28 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel highlights novel research that characterises, analyses and critiques inequities and water injustice and explores local, regional, and global solutions toward water justice.
Long Abstract:
Despite successive global declarations and efforts, hundreds of millions still suffer from lack of access to clean water. Colonial legacies of resource ownership and territorial divides continue to influence development in local, regional, and transnational water governance. Within an increasingly fragmented social-political landscape, marginalised communities have struggled to be heard. Technical portrayals of water and sanitation ‘crises’ have often led to misunderstandings on the nature of the problem and how to address it.
We invite authors to make contributions that address and illuminate barriers and solutions to achieving water justice. Differing expressions of justice and rights to water from alternative knowledge systems and understanding are welcome. Research that sheds light on and engages communities that have historically been excluded from water governance and management, such as Indigenous Peoples, is especially encouraged.
Specific topics of interest include but are not limited to:
• Interdisciplinary and intercultural research with scientists engaging communities and local
knowledge holders and systems and other stakeholders in water governance
• Theoretical and alternative understandings of social and water justice that reframe challenges and solutions of water justice for incremental and transformative change
• Empirical research on challenges and solutions for access to safe, affordable water infrastructure for diverse, under-represented, and economically disadvantaged communities;
• Climate justice and the disproportionate impact of climate change related to water and
disadvantaged communities.
Contributors will be asked to submit their materials in advance. These contributions can take multiple forms, including video, slides with audio, podcast/audio-only and text-only.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 28 June, 2024, -Anthony Amoah (University of Environment and Sustainable Development)
Paper short abstract:
This paper contributes to the debate on "promoting just water futures" in Africa by investigating whether the "so-called" incentives from the government for water users get to the targeted poor or end up with the untargeted rich. This study sheds light on the equitable targeting of water subsidies.
Paper long abstract:
To provide financial assistance to households and ensure service continuity for water consumption as a human right, the Ghanaian government waived the water bills of all customers throughout the country from April to December 2020. To help unconnected households, it also constructed a number of new water points and subsidised delivered water. There is, however, a long literature showing that subsidising water prices in many low- and middle-income countries poorly targets those in need because they are the least likely to have a piped connection. We estimate the subsidy incidence of Ghana’s policy by pairing data on programme expenditures with the nationally representative data on “normal” water expenditures for both connected and unconnected households from the most recent Ghanaian Living Standards Survey. We estimate that, unsurprisingly, nearly all subsidies went to urban populations and that 68% accrued to households with above-median incomes. The bottom income decile (50% to the bottom decile) received only 26.7% of subsidies, depicting a regressive trend. The study argues that towards "promoting just water futures," water financing and subsidy distribution are inevitable; however, the recipient of the said subsidy should not be disadvantaged. In poor countries, where the institutions have been observed in the literature to be weak, this study highlights the challenges hampering their ability to ensure fairness in the distribution of resources that seek to enhance the right to basic services such as water. The study provides recommendations for equitable distribution of water-incentives for the vulnerable in our quest to promote just water futures.
Marya L Hillesland (University of Oxford) Cheryl R Doss (Tufts University)
Paper short abstract:
Using unique data from Kilifi County, Kenya, this empirical study explores how intrahousehold decisions-making dynamics shape households’ water outcomes and water security.
Paper long abstract:
Households make a complex set of decisions on water source choice, quantity demanded, and the allocation of water across household members and activities. In many parts of the world, people choose from among multiple sources of water that are of different quality and reliability; many households may rely on unimproved sources of water, such as rivers, ponds, and open springs. The water sources chosen by the household and amount taken from each source may vary based the household’s access to different water sources; the household’s preferences and specific water needs; and costs and constraints in obtaining the water from each source. Demand for water in these contexts is often modelled to consider the households’ choices among water sources, the quantity demanded of water, or to take into account simultaneity between households’ source choice and the quantity of water taken from that source. In these models, the household is portrayed as a single decision-making unit with a single set of household preferences (i.e. a unitary household model). Power dynamics and the decision-making process within the household are not made explicit, and the fact that household members may have differing preferences is not taken into account. Yet, extensive work on unpacking household decision making has demonstrated that portraying households as a single decision-making unit is not appropriate. Using unique data from Kilifi County, Kenya, this empirical study disentangles how intrahousehold decisions-making dynamics shape households’ water outcomes and security.
Mikkel Funder (Danish Institute for International Studies) Martin Marani (University of Nairobi) Sylvia Rotich (University of Nairobi)
Paper short abstract:
While policy-makers talk about climate change, communities across the Global South are busy adapting on their own account. Our paper examines how communities innovate local water governance institutions in order to support autonomous adaptation strategies, and what this means for water justice.
Paper long abstract:
Water is critical to the resilience of communities, and a key element in the autonomous climate change adaptation strategies whereby communities actively respond to climate change through their own collective or individual agency. Yet little is known about the institutional dimensions of such autonomous adaptation strategies, especially in relation to water: How do communities change and innovate local water governance institutions as they adapt to climate change, and what does this imply for water justice?
This paper examines how Maasai communities in Kenya innovate rules, norms and organizational mechanisms for water governance in order to facilitate their everyday climate change adaptation strategies. Drawing on a household survey and qualitative interviews we examine the nature and outcomes of institutional changes in water governance in three different land use settings in southern Kenya.
We find that these changes are characterized by creative processes of bricolage whereby community members mix customary, statutory and newly developed institutional practices, and combine both communal and private control of water and land in hybrid arrangements. We also find that these institutional innovations are conflictual and shaped by power relations – both within communities and with external actors - and that their development tends to favour the climate change adaptation strategies of some community members over others.
Our paper emphasizes the importance - and dilemmas - of supporting community led institutional change for just water governance in the context of climate change, and ensuring that poor households are not marginalised in the process.
Arit Oku (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria)
Paper short abstract:
Focus is on gendered urban vulnerabilities at the household level and resultant inequities in access, based on a study conducted in a low-income, coastal community in Lagos, Nigeria. The paper problematizes the gendered bodily impact of water and sanitation poverty linking it with justice/policy.
Paper long abstract:
The mission of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 is to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, with a commitment to leave no one behind. This commitment is embraced not only by Nigeria but also by numerous other countries globally. While the conventional focus on measuring progress typically centres on assessing access to improved facilities, this approach often neglects the gendered dimensions such as ease and dignity of access, and the bodily experiences and impacts associated with access. The quality of access that an individual enjoys is determined by factors such as gender, geographical location, and economic capacity. The complicating factor of climate change further exacerbates this equation, with females experiencing distinct impacts from males, and the poor facing significant challenges due to water and sanitation poverty.
This paper delves into the "private" household domain, presenting key findings from conducted fieldwork looking at quality from the demand rather than the supply lens. Unlike standard measurements of improved/unimproved facilities, these case studies vividly illustrate the linkages between SDG 6 and the achievement of gender equality (SDG 5), as well as SDGs 1, 3, and 4—no poverty, good health and wellbeing, and quality education, respectively. This insight can empower policymakers to understand the gender dimensions of access and to strategically address these and associated barriers to water and sanitation access, crucial for achieving transformative and sustainable change—the overarching vision of SDG 6.