Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Groundwater Programme, British Geological Survey (BGS)
1. Following from attendance to give oral
evidence to the committee on 16 January and perusal of some of
the other oral and written evidence, we would like to make the
following brief additional points.
2. Our strongly-argued view that more attention
should be given to water resources should not be taken as diminishing
in any way our desire for, and commitment to, the basic need for
the improved water and sanitation services which underpin the
MDGs. Rather, the work by DFID and in fact by all agencies working
towards the MDG targets needs to be planned and implemented with
greater awareness of:
— the natural constraints on water
availability, accessibility and sustainability in terms of both
quantity and quality; these constraints may be greater in DFID
focus countries currently furthest from the MDG targets;
— the water resources management
implications of increasing water usage where better water provision
generates agricultural and economic activity;
— the potential for both unsewered
and water-borne sanitation to impact on the microbiological and
chemical quality of surface water and groundwater; and hence the
need to provide sufficient linkages between water and sanitation
programmes to ensure protection of scarce water resources;
— the considerable depth of knowledge,
detailed information and archived original data from numerous
developing countries relating to water resource development obtained
by UK institutes and agencies, the collection of which was funded
in many cases by DFID and its predecessors.
The investments required to achieve this greater
awareness are modest compared to the ranges of cost figures for
water and sanitation infrastructure quoted in the evidence, but
without this there is danger of a major gap between "gross"
coverage and "nett" access. There is always at least
a small gap of this nature because reliability and continuity
issues related to operation and maintenance mean that, at any
one time, a certain proportion of the supplies is not providing
water. Inadequate consideration of resource sustainability in
relation to water quantity (reliability of yields) and water quality,
and within the context of climatic change, could make this gap
much larger.
3. While we and other witnesses have expressed
strong concerns about the implications of the budget support funding
approach for water, on reflection a positive opportunity can be
identified. If the conditionality surrounding budget support and
the agreements between donor and recipient countries allow, there
could be an opening for increased support for recurrent expenditure,
which donors have traditionally been unwilling to provide. For
water resources management this is especially important, as many
of the regulatory functions of IWRM are by their nature recurrent—the
monitoring and data collection that was referred to in the 16
January session, water abstraction licensing and permitting, inspection
and control of irrigation water use, maintenance of water control
structures, pollution inspection, monitoring of land use change.
These activities are only effective as a basis for management
if they can be sustained. Our overseas experience tells us that
regulatory agencies in developing countries are invariably poorly
resourced in terms of staff complements and recurrent operating
budgets.
4. Witnesses have commented on the disbursement
of considerable sums from DFID budgets directly to external organisations
and the examples of CGIAR and IDRC Canada have been cited. We
share this concern. IDRC is a long-established and well-respected
institute in water development research, with whom we have had
contact from time to time. There is not, however, much evidence
from its website of a track record in climate change adaptation
research, and the link with DFID is very much portrayed there
as a new and evolving programme. £15 million is a lot to
commit in this situation. It may turn out to be an inspired choice
but, as with the support to CGIAR, it is a great pity that one
result is that the accumulated UK applied research expertise in
water will not be brought to bear on these issues. Overall, this
seems to be negating the much-vaunted UK comparative advantage
in water, and we cannot help coming reluctantly to the conclusion
that there is a connection between the drive to increase such
outsourcing and the decline in technical capacity within DFID.
John Chilton
British Geological Survey
January 2007
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