Examination of Witnesses (Questions 135
- 139)
TUESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2006
PROFESSOR TOM
FRANKS, MS
VICKY CANN
AND MR
ANTONIO MIRANDA
Q135 Chairman: Good morning to our
second set of witnesses and thank you for being here. If you could
take on board what we said earlier; I hope we will have time to
hear everything you want to tell us if both our questions and
answers are succinct. First of all, could I ask you to briefly
introduce yourselves and then there will be some general questions
to all of you and some specific questions to each of you.
Ms Cann: My name is Vicky Cann.
I am the Campaign Policy Officer at the World Development Movement,
which is a UK-based advocacy NGO.
Professor Franks: My name is Tom
Franks. I am a Professor at the Centre for International Development
at Bradford University.
Mr Miranda: I am Antonio Miranda.
I am with the Brazilian Association of Municipal Water and Sanitation
Public Water Operators, and also with the UN Secretary General
Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation.
Q136 Chairman: Thank you. One of
the issues facing both water and sanitation and the elusiveness
of the MDG targets is the need for governance issues to be addressed;
in other words, it is the institutional frameworks that can deliver.
We have debates about the role of the public and private sector,
the inadequacy sometimes of the infrastructure on the ground and
problems of corruption and so forth. Can you perhaps indicate
the extent to which you see governance as being an issue which
has to be addressed if we are going to have a chance of delivering
this. Otherwise if it is left to piecemeal measures by a whole
variety of agencies that does not seem to address the problem.
Can you give an indication of how important it is and what the
key issues in relation to governance would be?
Professor Franks: Water governance
was the basis on which we gave evidence. It interested us at the
Centre for International Development because it seems to us to
be the next in a succession of slogans that we have tended to
work with that make us feel good. If you look back over the last
15 years, say, we had "Managing Water Wisely"—who
could argue with that; we had "Integrated Water Resource
Management"—who could argue with that; we had "Good
Water Governance"—and who could argue with that? We
wanted to explore what was meant by "good water governance".
We would like to put across I think some warning signals about
it as a concept. Its value is in leading us to think about the
way all the different partners that are involved can work together:
government; the public sector; the private sector; communities;
and individuals. I think there is a danger it can be sidetracked
into issues of corruption and good government which are very important
in themselves, but I think there is a danger that we lose sight
of what can be a very useful concept for us.
Ms Cann: I agree with what has
been said. I think governance is much bigger than purely talking
about corruption. It is really about: who are we talking to; who
is being involved in delivering water and sanitation; how effective
are they being; and where is the money coming from. When we have
looked at good providers from around the world we have seen a
number of principles that seem to be common to those we would
say have got good governance and those are: principles around
accountability and transparency; principles around efficiency;
and principles, in some cases at least, around community involvement,
community participation, and really ensuring water providers and
sanitation providers are demand-led. With those four principles
that is at least a starting point for providers which we could
say are on the road to achieving good governance.
Q137 Chairman: I take the point it
is not simply about corruption but about delivery. Taking Mr Bayley's
point from a previous evidence session, if we go back to the 19th
century, I think Joe Chamberlain said, "Everybody's business
is nobody's business" which was his great slogan for municipalisation,
and said we had to take public health seriously and, therefore,
we had to provide water, sewerage and other public health issues.
It required institutional frameworks and local politicians of
some integrity. Is that what we are talking about in this context
when you talk about quality of governance; it is not just about
they are not corrupt but they have the capacity and the will to
deliver on the ground?
Professor Franks: I think it is,
but what we should be striving for are new ways of bringing all
those different partners together and ways of making that working
together more effective. Why it is important is that we see the
scale of the problem as huge. You are all saying that the scale
of the problem is huge. We cannot rely only on government to deliver.
We have to look at all the other partners that can help us deliver.
That is what I think good governance is.
Mr Miranda: Governance is the
key issue and, regardless of the institutional arrangements that
can be done to ensure that governance, we have to have big concern
for sustainability. Much aid from International Financial Institutions
is related to short-term projects, as was raised in the previous
session. We are very concerned right now about the sustainability
of such achievements, meaning that we do not believe any more
in top-down decisions for an institutional framework, we are more
concerned about creating democratic decision-making, supervisory
committees and multi-stakeholder committees, and we want to ensure
the sustainability of the institutional reforms that are needed.
Q138 John Battle: Some of the submissions
that we have had suggested that there was weak scientific, technical,
monitoring and analytical capacity by governments so that the
quality of governance suffered simply because things like training
were being cut back and so the projects were got going and were
then left, as the Chairman said earlier. What is your view of
the impact that insufficient technical expertise has on the capacity
of countries to deliver, plan, regulate, invest and manage large-scale
projects?
Mr Miranda: The impact is huge.
Usually—and I am talking generally, there are exceptions—donors
do not like to invest in capacity building. This is not the perception
of myself only. It was shared by two bankers and these bankers
are part of the UN Advisory Board. Again, referring to the previous
session, this means that sometimes we have in developing countries
aid and support from other agencies or other countries' agencies
but there is no counterpart from government, there is no counterpart
for building up possible participation from civil society representatives,
and as soon as this work finishes things go back to the previous
situation. I have said it before and I will say it again: sustainability
is key. How to ensure that the political changes that are usual
for democratic systems do not undermine the reforming processes
is something that we need to respond to.
Q139 John Battle: But at what governmental
level? Is there a fracture between national and regional or local
government? Are these practical examples, to go back to my colleague
Hugh Bayley's example from the 19th century? In the 1820s two
huge dams were built on the Pennines at both Leeds and Bradford.
They were estimated to provide a population of 120,000 of Leeds
and Bradford for 40 years. Those dams were developed at such a
scale that they sustained a population of 2.3 million for more
than a century longer than they were designed for, but the design
was not done locally when we checked through. It was a national
stimulus that came through rather than it be left to the arguments
at the local level. I just put that example forward. Is it the
local or the national level that should try to do the programmes?
Where should the impetus be to develop a sustainable system that
is much more widespread in its impact?
Mr Miranda: From the Brazilian
experience, we used to have a very centralised management of water
and we have been trying to decentralise for the last 15 years
and it has been very successful. As for the other developing countries,
we feel very strongly that there are serious movements coming
from the grass roots, meaning that this lack of technical capacity,
this lack of ability, can be provided at a very local level with,
of course, national governments, provisional state governments
acting in a complementary role, but mainly from communities, from
the local government comes the main responsibility for that.
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