The SEEAW in the context of
Integrated Water Resource
Management
Roberto Lenton
Chair,
Technical Committee
Global Water Partnership
Outline

Integrated water resources management
(IWRM) -- and the role of the Global Water
Partnership

The challenges of monitoring and assessing
water resources for the MDGs within an
integrated approach

The role and value of SEEAW within this
context
Integrated water
resources management
(IWRM) and the role of
the Global Water
Partnership
Global Water
Partnership
Integrated Water Resources Management

Seeks to “promote the coordinated
development and management of water, land,
and related resources, in order to maximize the
resultant economic and social welfare in an
equitable manner without compromising the
sustainability of vital ecosystems”

A problem-solving approach to address key
water challenges in ways that are economically
efficient, socially equitable and environmentally
sustainable.
An IWRM Process is
to strike the balance between:
Social Equity
Economical Feasibility
Environmental Sustainability
China Daily 4 Nov. 2004
Central Government
Local government
Private sector
Academia
Civil society
etc…
Need platform
for alliance building!
etc……
Social planning
Economic Planning
Energy
Industry
Environment
Agriculture
Sanitation
Across
institutional roles
Hydrology
Across sectors &
disciplines
Water Supply
IWRM entails bringing stakeholders together
Integrated Water Resources Management: core
features

Involves developing efficient, equitable and sustainable solutions
to water and development problems

Involves aligning interests and activities that are traditionally seen
as unrelated or not well coordinated (horizontally and vertically)

Needs knowledge from various disciplines as well as insights from
diverse stakeholders

Not just water: involves integrating water in overall sustainable
development processes. Also requires coordinating the
management of water with land and related resources
GWP Mission
to support countries in the sustainable
management of their water resources
GWP Regions
Central Government
Local government
Private sector
Academia
Civil society
etc…
GWP - a platform
for alliance building
etc……
Social planning
Economic Planning
Energy
Industry
Environment
Agriculture
Sanitation
Across
institutional roles
Hydrology
Across sectors &
disciplines
Water Supply
GWP brings stakeholders together
GWP is a Facilitator


Assisting countries in their IWRM implementation
Bringing stakeholders together in 60 countries, three
provinces and one river basin of China
GWP China High-Level Round Tables
“come out with list of issues and collectively found solutions”
The challenge:
Monitoring and assessing
water resources
for the MDGs
within
an IWRM approach
Global Water
Partnership
Water: impacts both on Target #10 and
on the MDGs as a whole
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Target 9: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and
programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
Target 10: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking
water and basic sanitation
Target 11: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100
million slum dwellers
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Monitoring Frameworks for the MDGs
Target #10:


Established Institutional Mechanism: Joint Monitoring
Programme of UNICEF/WHO
Agreed conceptual framework for defining and
measuring access
Water’s broader role for the MDGs as a whole:


Institutional Mechanism: the World Water Assessment
Programme and the WWDRs
Need effective conceptual framework
Why monitoring and assessing water for all the
MDGs is so much more complicated!








Overall development goals (MDGs translated at national levels)
Water and development “objectives” related to goals
Actions to address these objectives, within IWRM approach
Targets to make goals, objectives and actions specific -- with
defined and measurable criteria for achievement and timetables
Indicators -- to assess progress towards the targets associated
with goals and objectives and the accomplishment of actions
Process indicators, which monitor the basic progress of
implementing agreed actions
Outcome indicators, which monitor the direct results of actions.
Impact indicators, which monitor progress towards achieving goals
and objectives.
The role and value
of
SEEAW
Global Water
Partnership
Value of SEEAW within MDG/IWRM context
1. Provides the much-needed conceptual
framework for monitoring and assessment
2. Enables consideration and quantification of
inter-linkages that are critical to an IWRM
approach
3. By integrating water and economic accounts,
facilitates the mainstreaming of water policy in
economic decision making
4. Enables linkages with other natural resource
accounts (e.g., land)
Value of SEEAW within MDG/IWRM context
(continued)
5. Enables different stakeholders to have a
consistent and transparent frame of information
from which to develop recommendations
6. Provides effective framework for considering
specific issues (e.g., allocative efficiency)
7. Enables further specific indicators to be
derived from it
Credibility and authority are critically important too!

SEEAW has credibility and authority that
comes with:
 Being based on established system of national
accounts
 Having been developed with expertise from the
statistical community
 Having been tested in several countries
Important Next Steps

Further development and testing through pilot projects on
the implementation of SEEAW with participating countries

SEEAW Round-Table under the auspices of the UN
Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic
Accounting – further promote and implement SEEAW

UN-Water Task Force on IWRM Monitoring and Reporting
– integrate SEEAW in set of robust indicators for IWRM
monitoring and proposed mechanisms for monitoring and
reporting
Xie, Xie
www.gwpchina.org