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Building River Dialogue and Governance in Mesoamerican drylands

Submitted by Nitya Jacob 19th December 2022 4:57
Goascoran upper river basin

Adaptation Options

The BRIDGE project (Building River Dialogue and Governance) has been working in three transboundary basins in Mesoamerica to promote cooperation and build capacities on water governance of stakeholders at the local, national and transboundary levels. Of the three basins, the Goascorán (shared between Honduras and El Salvador) is the driest, since it is located in the heart of the Central American Dry Corridor. This is a sub-region of the otherwise low water-stress tropical region that extends as a zone with climatic characteristics of a dry tropical forest, with an accentuated and long dry season (“verano”), and where there is a latent risk of recurring droughts during the reduced rainy season (“invierno”) caused by a late arrival of the invierno, an extension of the Mid-Summer Drought, or a premature stopping of the invierno”.

BRIDGE is working on strengthening governance structures in both countries, aiming at the establishment of binational agreements among stakeholders and therefore binational actions for the sustainable management of the basin. The BRIDGE project in Goascorán was developed with the IWRM approach in mind and the methodology adopted for the three basins is similar, since it focuses on water governance and not on specific field interventions. However, stakeholder priorities vary between the dryland sites and the non-dryland sites. In this river basin a network of champions, including local officials, has been empowered who can advocate for good water governance and transboundary water management. The network serves as a mechanism for transmitting information and knowledge upwards. As a result of several face-to-face and virtual meetings and exchanges as well as training on IWRM and water governance the network has begun to establish workplans in each sub-catchment. Goascorán champions are also committed to strengthening the once discontinued Goascorán Binational Management Group by implementing local policy advocacy and actively participating in the Group’s meetings and activities.

Practice has shown that in Goascorán stakeholders are more aware of the effects of the dry, worsening climate while in the other Central American basins the focus is more on broader issues of sustainable development such as tourism, ecosystem conservation, and sustainable agriculture practices among others. Stakeholders in the Goascorán are more worried about food production and the effects of drought due to high rainfall variability which is a main feature of these dryland areas. They are  therefore also more concerned about finding solutions to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change on agriculture and the availability of water for human consumption.

The project has had positive impacts on the management of the Goascorán river basin, for example in facilitating the operationalization of the water law in Honduras, through the establishment of basin, sub-Goascorán upper basin, in Guajiquiro in Honduras basin and micro-watershed councils. Due to synergies with other international cooperation projects it is working on the development of micro-watershed  management plans in order to include climate change adaptation plans that could be linked to broader planning at the basin level. Given the nature of the intervention in Goascorán, there are no direct economic or environmental outcomes to measure in the short term.

Social outcomes, however, include strengthening institutional coordination planning for watershed management and participation of local stakeholders in transboundary forums to raise issues of local interest, such as the potential impacts of large dams and transnational highways with the respective national authorities. Stakeholders in the Goascorán have expressed the need for investment in solutions against the impact of severe droughts in agriculture (aggravated by climate change) such as the introduction of more resistant crops, water harvesting and storage, and livelihood diversification among others. However, communities in this area do not have the resources and knowledge to change current practices and livelihoods to more resilient ones.

As a response, the project has enabled the establishment of twelve institutional coordination platforms. The membership of the watershed councils and the binational management group for the Goascorán river basin encompasses government officials, community members and the private sector represented. Local leaders include women representatives. This project links through local to national policies. At the national level, it is working side by side with the Ministries of the Environment of the two countries. At the local level in Honduras, it is working on implementing the national water policy.

The main lesson is therefore on the power of local to national action pathways, whereby locally based stakeholders drive change through innovative thinking, e.g. by working around the absence of binational agreements to implement cooperation across borders at the basin level. Mayors in Honduras and El Salvador have undertaken joint actions, demonstrating that shared challenges at the basin level - concrete problems that need to be resolved such as the potential impacts of large dams and transnational highways - can mobilise local leaders into becoming trail blazers on transboundary cooperation.

This has taught the BRIDGE project team that identifying concrete local issues that will motivate joint action toward cooperative problem solving can provide valuable entry points in future transboundary water governance efforts. Conversely, transboundary structures or platforms on integrated water resources management must bring tangible benefits to stakeholders, such as improvements in sustainable agricultural production or tourism.

Written by Nazareth Porras, IUCN-ORMACC. Sourced from Davies, J., Barchiesi, S., Ogali, C.J., Welling, R., Dalton, J., and P. Laban (2016). Water in drylands: Adapting to scarcity through integrated management. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. 44pp