Multi-stakeholder platforms for integrated water management

The book aims to get to a better understanding of some key defining characteristics of multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs), and how these relate to their performance, and the kind of contexts, or boundary conditions in which these MSPs thrive. It consists of two introductory chapters which provide a conceptual framework, followed by case studies, some of which provide important conceptual elements. The case studies come from Western countries, middle income Latin American countries, and South Africa, in some cases from the poorest regions in the respective countries. Cases from the poorest countries in Africa and South Asia are lacking. Seemingly, all cases come from contexts in which basins are closed, where water demand management has taken place through re-allocation of resources, and where water resources development has happened to a large extent. The concluding chapter reviews the framework. One of the book's conclusions is that dialogues around integrated water resources management can neither be fully top-down by some kind of institutional design of river basin organizations, nor can it be left to purely local bottom-up initiatives, because these only look at the local issues, and do not address issues at higher levels of scale. Some kind of middle-road model is needed which brings the two together.