The Rocky Road from Integrated Plans to Implementation: Lessons Learned from the Mekong and Senegal River Basins

Abstract

There is an undeniable need to coordinate and harmonize water sector policies at the global level, particularly those in large, transboundary river basins. Recent decades have witnessed a number of large international summits and other important events for that purpose, events that have expanded substantially both in size and frequency. This study analyzed the most important events, beginning with the United Nations Conference on Water (Mar del Plata 1977) an up until the Fourth World Water Forum (Mexico City 2006). The main outcomes of the events are analyzed and a comparison is made of the developments of the water sector in the Mekong and Senegal river basins. On the one hand, the gap between international recommendations and reality in large international river basins appears to remain considerable, and on the other hand the evolution of the quality of the recommendations per se also appears somewhat questionable.

Acknowledgements

The authors are deeply indebted to Asit K. Biswas, Cecilia Tortajada, Pertti Vakkilainen, Marko Keskinen, Katri Mehtonen, Matti Kummu, Juha Sarkkula, Ulla Heinonen, Jussi Nikula, Mira Käkönen and the numerous Southeast Asian and West African co-workers.