Memorandum submitted by the UK National
Committee for the International Hydrological Programme of UNESCO
1. The UK National Committee for the International
Hydrological Programme of UNESCO (the UK-IHP Committee) welcomes
the opportunity to submit written evidence to the House of Commons
International Development Committee inquiry on Water and Sanitation.
2. The UK-IHP Committee
(i) The UK-IHP Committee aims to support
and coordinate the UK contribution to the United Nations' primary
programme on research, education and capacity building in water—the
International Hydrology Programme of UNESCO.
(ii) The Committee comprises representatives
from UK organisations involved, or having interest, in international
hydrological research, including representatives from government
departments and agencies that fund hydrological research (eg DEFRA,
DFID, EA, NAW, SEPA, Scottish Executive, NAW), research centres
(BGS, CEH, Met Office), universities, learned societies (BHS,
IAHS), and UK-based representatives of major IHP programmes (eg
HELP, FRIEND, ISI, G-WADI).
(iii) The Committee represents UK national
interests within the IHP, which includes liaison with UNESCO,
representing the UK at Intergovernmental Council Meetings and
Regional IHP meetings, and the nomination of UK representatives
to various steering committees, working groups and task forces
of the IHP and its many initiatives.
(iv) The Committee reports to the UK National
Commission for UNESCO; it represents hydrological research community
interests on the Commission's Natural Sciences Committee and other
working groups.
3. The views expressed in this submission
reflect those of UK-IHP Committee members who responded to consultation
and are not necessarily the views of the whole Committee.
4. Main Points
(i) The UK-IHP Committee welcomes the Government's
commitment to poverty elimination as set-out in the Millennium
Development Goals and the pledges of support in the 2006 DFID
White Paper towards the delivery of water and sanitation services.
(ii) The Committee feels it vitally important
that DFID, in working towards these goals, does not overlook the
essential and urgent need for improved scientific and technical
knowledge to underpin key policies and decisions in respect of
water resources and climate change. Simply put, as access to water
increases, the demand for water resources will increase too; but
all too often developing countries lack the basic hydrological
data, expertise and knowledge required to assess the water that
is available for use. The Committee is of the opinion that DFID
should place greater emphasis on improving hydrometric monitoring
and data management in developing countries, developing programmes
to build technical capabilities of local staff and advancing scientific
understanding of the spatial and temporal occurrence of water
resources generally.
(iii) Much of the effort that has been made
towards MDGs has focused on water supply and sanitation. DFID
had agreed to hold a workshop in May 2006 to discuss water resources,
but this did not happen. This misses an opportunity for DFID to
harness UK expertise on water resources to help better define
implementation of the White Paper.
(iv) The Committee fears an imbalance remains
within DFID towards social sciences, at the expense of the physical
sciences. While there are certainly outstanding socio-economic
and institutional issues in water worthy of DFID's research interest,
the Committee believes the pendulum has swung too far, and a restored
balance, between the social and the technical, is needed. Appointment
of Prof Sir Gordon Conway as DFID Chief Scientific Adviser is
welcomed, but too few DFID staff have physical sciences backgrounds,
which has resulted in an apparent bias in policy implementation.
(v) The Committee is frustrated that, after
prolonged and extensive consultation, DFID still appears not to
have a clear strategy on water research to support the development
goals with respect to water and sanitation. Although the hydrological
research community contributed to the development of DFID Research
Strategy (eg OASIS, 2005), there appears little prospect, in its
present formulation (DFID, 2004), for water resources issues of
a technical nature being eligible for funding. Since the demise
of the DFID Engineering Knowledge and Research (EngKAR) programme,
there has been no obvious route for the funding of important hydrological
research in developing countries. A comprehensive evaluation of
EngKAR (Technopolis and ODI, 2005) stated the programme "supported
relevant, well-conducted projects in areas of great importance
to international development and poverty alleviation", yet
there has been no DFID support for the continuation of these efforts,
making much of the past investment a total waste. Despite claims
of increased DFID-sponsored research (HC, 2005), funding of UK
hydrological research in developing countries has slumped to an
all-time low in recent years, which has resulted in job cuts at
several leading UK research centres (eg at HRL, WEDC, Cranfield
University) and a loss in national expertise in developing country
water sciences.
(vi) The Committee is further concerned with
the trend that has emerged in DFID's approach to the funding of
research: that of relatively large sums of untied funding increasingly
being allocated to bilateral or multilateral initiatives independently
administered overseas (eg £15 million to CGIAR (OASIS, 2005),
and £24 million to the Climate Change Adaptation in Africa
Programme, administered by the International Development Research
Centre in Canada (DFID, 2006)). Given the lack of capacity within
DFID for it to manage its own research programmes, this may be
seen as a convenient mechanism for meeting Government commitments
on research investment, but the approach fails to realise the
potential contribution of the UK research community to international
development and further severely compromises the ability of the
UK research community to contribute in the long-term. It further
puts research funds beyond DFID's direct control so that the link
between DFID policy and research to support it is severed.
(vii) The Committee doubts that current DFID
policy, as set out in documents such as the recent White Paper,
of increasing the proportion of direct funding to developing countries,
will contribute to improved water resources management and water
service delivery. The policy enables support to be "demand
led" and allows partner governments to use the funds according
to their own development needs. From a water resources management
and water service delivery perspective, this can be problematic
because responsibilities for water (both management and supply)
are often divided between several government ministries, (eg agriculture,
irrigation, public works, environment) with water often having
a weaker voice in putting its case for DFID budget support than
other sectors (eg health, education, transport). Whilst communities
themselves (both rural and urban) often put improved water services
as a high priority, weak voices and representation in the chain
up to central government means that this need often does not get
carried upwards. Enhancing this voice needs external support from
agencies such as DFID. Worryingly, professional capacity in water
in many DFID African Focus countries has declined to such an extent
(due to funding constraints, decline in external training opportunities
and the ravages of AIDS) that ministries responsible for water
are poorly equipped to "demand" their share of budget
support. Linked to this, the availability of basic data on water
from hydrological and hydrogeological networks has recently declined
dramatically. This often makes the marshalling of an effective
argument (supported by evidence) for improved management of water
resources very difficult.
(viii) The Committee is further concerned
about the internal links within DFID concerning water issues.
Agricultural production is clearly one of the major water users
worldwide, yet the DFID agriculture strategy makes little mention
of water. In addition, recommendations raised by the Commission
on Africa, to vastly increase irrigated agriculture, have not
been supported by assessments of water resource availability.
(ix) External support for water and sanitation
should comprise a range of aid instruments and funding mechanisms
which should include direct budget support, technical assistance
programmes, training and capacity building, research programmes,
resource centre schemes with call-down arrangements to draw on
UK expertise, longer-term, low-level, targeted support for twinning,
to build implementation and research capacity, and support to
UN agencies.
REFERENCES DFID,
2004. DFID Research Funding Framework 2005-07. 20 pp.
DFID, 2006. DFID www site: Research_Climate
Change_Adapting to Climate Change.
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/research/climate-change.asp
HC, 2005. Use of Science in UK International
Development Policy: Government Response to the Committee's Thirteenth
Report of Session 2003-04. Second Special Report of Session 2004-05.
House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. HC 235, 24
January 2005. 34 pp.
OASIS, 2005. Scoping Study for Possible DFID
Funding of Research into Water for Development. OASIS Resource
Centre, Wallingford. April, 2005. 64 pp.
Technopolis and ODI, 2005. Evaluation of DFID's
Engineering Knowledge and research (EngKAR) Programme. July, 2005.
83 pp.
LIST OF
ABBREVIATIONS
| BGS | British Geological Survey
|
| BHS | British Hydrological Society
|
| CCAA | Climate Change Adaptation in Africa
|
| CEH | Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
|
| CGIAR | Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
|
| DEFRA | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
|
| DFID | Department for International Development
|
| EA | Environment Agency of England and Wales
|
| FRIEND | Flow Regimes from International Experimental and Network Data
|
| G-WADI | Global Network—Water and Development Information for Arid Lands
|
| HELP | Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy
|
| HRL | Hydraulics Research Limited, Wallingford
|
| IAHS | International Association for Hydrological Sciences
|
| IDRC | International Development Research Centre
|
| IHP | International Hydrological Programme of UNSECO
|
| ISI | International Sedimentation Initiative
|
| NAW | National Assembly for Wales
|
| SEPA | Scottish Environment Protection Agency
|
| UN | United Nations |
| UNESCO | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
|
| WEDC | Water, Engineering and Development Centre, Loughborough University
|
| | |
| October 2006 | |
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