Learning for Transformation of Water Governance

Water governance is a dynamic process, one with many different interconnected dimensions, including the institutional, political, social, regulatory, economic, administrative and ethical. As such, it means different things to different people, depending on whether it’s interpreted as being about guiding, directing, ruling and/or valuing water.

From many different perspectives, however, existing governance arrangements are unable to deal with the challenges emerging from climate change. Recent years have therefore seen increasing calls for the transformation of current water governance, and recognition of the need to build capacity for adaptation to climate change at different levels.

A new paper, Learning for Transformation of Water Governance: Reflections on Design from the Climate Change Adaptation and Water Governance (CADWAGO) Project, published in MPDI open-access journal Water, thus sets out to investigate what happens when ambitions regarding water-governance learning are put into practice, and explores how best to bring about relevant learning.

Authors Chris Blackmore and nine of her colleagues draw on their experiences of CADWAGO (Climate Change Adaptation and Water Governance), an international project led by the Stockholm Environment Institute. CADWAGO brought together partners from Europe, Australasia and North America to create a forum for dialogue among actors involved in transforming water governance not only in different contexts, but at different levels and scales.

Within the project, learning was conceptualised as an interactive process of co-production and, throughout, the challenges involved in taking this approach – including the interrelating of diverse perspectives and the distribution of design and leadership of events – were addressed as fully as possible. In addition, the design principles used were consistent with a second-order design for learning in which the researchers took account of the contexts of the research and of their own perspectives and history.  

In conclusion, the authors argue that design in support of learning has a vital role to play in helping to ensure meaningful dialogue and purposeful learning around the transformation of water governance. They also identify a range of concepts, tools and techniques appropriate for best framing and enabling this process.  

Read Learning for Transformation of Water Governance: Reflections on Design from the Climate Change Adaptation and Water Governance (CADWAGO) Project in full.