Placing civil society in water security governance: challenges and opportunities for engagement

Figures & data

Table 1. Typology of governance actions.

Governance action (GA)
	Nasiritousi et al. (2016) – climate governance	Huitema et al. (2009) – adaptive management	Pahl-Wostl (2015) – water governance	Schauppenlehner-Kloyber and Penker (2016) – urban sustainability governance
GA1: Defining the problem, proposing solutions, framing relevant policies	Influencing the agenda Proposing solutions Influencing decisions and policy makers	Experimentation, in the sense of bringing in diverse stakeholders and trialling new approaches	Policy framing	Problem identification and framing
GA2: Creating, accessing, providing and sharing knowledge	Providing information and expertise	Providing knowledge and experience	Knowledge generation	Knowledge exchange and social learning
GA3: Taking independent action that can inform practice	Implement actions, raise awareness	Implementation and independent action Trust building, increasing social capital		Conflict resolution and mediation
GA4: Monitoring and evaluating, taking a critical perspective, promoting accountability	Evaluating consequences of policies and measures		Monitoring and evaluation	Monitoring of implementation, monitoring of natural resources
GA5: Taking part in public decision making, representation (generally of laypersons or public interest)	Representing public opinion within a decision-making process Representing marginalised voices	Participation by the poor and marginalised in society Representing public opinion		Developing rules for long-term collaboration, institution building

Figure 1. Hierarchical representation of multilevel government entities in Malaysia. NB: Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy, which, as a former British colony, draws its Federal and state constitutions somewhat from Westminster conventions. The Prime Minister and Members of Parliament are elected through general and state elections. The monarch (the Yang di-Pertuan Agung) and state-based traditional rulers (the Sultans) have ceremonial powers to appoint the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers, respectively. Local governments are appointed by the state parties in power. This figure provides a general depiction of government entities as a tiered system. The unidirectional arrows indicate powers to appoint.

Figure 2. Governance entities that shape water security in Johor, by type and governance level/tier. Dots indicate hybrid entities: The Malaysian Water Association represents the water services industry and also has public interest objectives; Think City is a not-for-profit organisation created by the Khazanah, the Malaysian government’s sovereign wealth fund.

Figure 3. Freshwater issues and related government and civil society actions and interactions (2016–2019). Arrows depict the initiation of engagement between government and civil society a specific water security issue; two-way arrows show initiation from both sides; crosses indicate no initiation of engagement from either side. GAs relate to the governance actions displayed in Table 1.

Figure 4. Locating civil society participation in water security governance based on governance levels and framing of the issues. Examples all come from the Johor case study and are intended to be illustrative rather than comprehensive.

Nasiritousi, N., Hjerpe, M., & Linnér, B.-O. (2016). The roles of non-state actors in climate change governance: Understanding agency through governance profiles. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law & Economics, 16(1), 109–126. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-014-9243-8

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Huitema, D., Mostert, E., Egas, W., Moellenkamp, S., Pahl-Wostl, C., & Yalcin, R. (2009). Adaptive water governance: Assessing the institutional prescriptions of adaptive (co-)management from a governance perspective and defining a research agenda. Ecology and Society, 14(1), 26. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-02827-140126. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26268026

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Pahl-Wostl, C. (2015). Water governance in the face of global change. Springer.

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Schauppenlehner-Kloyber, E., & Penker, M. (2016). Between participation and collective action – from occasional liaisons towards long-term co-management for urban resilience. Sustainability, 8(7), 664. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8070664

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