Terence R. Lee - Water Resources Management in Latin America and the Caribbean

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Water Resources Management in Latin America and the Caribbean

Studies in Water Policy and Management

Charles W. Howe, General Editor

Water Resources Management in Latin America and the Caribbean, Terence R. Lee

Social, Economic, and Institutional Issues in Third World Irrigation Management, edited by R. K. Sampath and Robert A. Young

Irrigation Development in Africa: Lessons of Experience, Jon R. Moris and Derrick J. Thom

Congress in Its Wisdom: The Bureau of Reclamation and the Public Interest, Doris Ostrander Dawdy

Water Markets in Theory and Practice: Market Transfers, Water Values, and Public Policy, Bonnie Colby Saliba and David B. Bush

Improving International Irrigation Management with Farmer Participation: Getting the Process Right, Norman Uphoff

Irrigation Investment, Technology, and Management Strategies for Development, edited by K. William Easter

Irrigation Management in Developing Countries: Current Issues and Approaches, edited by K. C. Nobe and R. K. Sampath

Water Resources Management in Latin America and the Caribbean

Terence R. Lee

Published by Westview Press for and on behalf of the United Nations

Studies in Water Policy and Management, No. 16

First published 1990 by Westview Press

Published 2019 by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1990 by the United Nations

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lee, Terence R.
Water resources management in Latin America and the Caribbean/by
Terence R. Lee.
p. cm.(Westview studies in water policy and management;
#16)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8133-7999-7
1. Water resources developmentGovernment policyLatin America.
2. Water resources developmentGovernment policyCaribbean Area.
3. Water resources developmentGovernment policyLatin America
Case studies. 4. Water resources developmentGovernment policy
Caribbean AreaCase studies. I. Title. II. Series.
HD1696.5.L37L44 1990
333.91'15'098dc20 90-12593
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-21335-0 (hbk)

Contents

1. ii

Guide

Tables

Figures

1
Introduction

In the quest for growth, for higher levels of income and improved standards of living, the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean have given considerable attention, over the last four decades, to the harnessing of water resources. One example of what has been achieved can be seen in the fact that, in the years since 1945, the volume of water held in reservoirsa useful if imprecise index of the extent of the effort that has been madehas increased more than twenty-fold. Similar growth has occurred in the area of land under irrigation, in the generation of hydroelectricity and in the supply of water to the population and to industry. In general, the regulation and control of river flows has increased to such an extent that, now, even the largest river systems in the region are subject to considerable modification of their natural flow regimes and water control works have become perhaps the most ambitious efforts made to manipulate nature in the support of man's activities.

After such a great expansion in the effort to benefit from the region's large natural endowment with water, a stocktaking process has begun in most countries on the effectiveness of the management of the systems that have been built. There is a feeling that the gains anticipated from this investment in water flow control have not been achieved to the extent originally proposed and expected. Such criticism is not new, but it took on renewed force with the advent of a general and prolonged recession in most countries in the early 1980s.

Outside the confines of water management, in the current discussion of policies to overcome the generally unfavourable economic situation much emphasis is being placed on the need to increase the effectiveness of the management of, and the rate of return from, investments already made, particularly those made in the public sector. Public sector in

Central Government Expenditure
Source: World Bank, World Development Report, 1986

vestment, and the role of government as a whole in the economy, has grown continually until very recently in nearly all the countries of Latin America ( The crisis perceived in public sector management is therefore of considerable relevance to the management of the water resource. Equally, the size of water-related investment means that improvement in the performance of water-related projects could have an important impact on the performance of the public sector as a whole.

Despite the high level of concern for reform of public sector management, there are no generally accepted opinions on what reforms will achieve improvement in management performance, either in the public sector in general, or in the field of water resources in particular. To be sure, many opinions have been advanced as to the reasons for the poor performance of the institutions of the water sector as managers of large public investments. Equally, there are numerous proposals for reform, including the transfer of the maximum of economic activities in the public sector to private ownership, the decentralization of government, the creation of autonomous public corporations not tied to the bureaucratic traditions and norms of the civil service, and many more.

The present study is the latest in a long line of ECLAC studies on water resources in Latin America and the Caribbean which focus on questions relating to the management of water resource systems. In the course of this work various proposals have been made for technical improvements in management involving, in particular, the need for integrated management covering all water uses, the need for a broader view of what is water management so as to better specify the issues involved and, finally, the need for the decentralization of decisionmaking to permit the incorporation of the users and the local population in the decision-making process.

The issue of management failure facing most water resource management systems in the region goes beyond their institutional form and is too complex to be resolved by the application of one formula or another for the reform of administrative systems, but this does not mean that all hope of change should be abandoned. This is the justification for undertaking this present study, where stress has been placed on the basic need for improvement in the quality of management, independently of the form of the administrative or managment system. It is argued that only through improvement in management quality can lasting improvement in the operation of water resource systems be achieved.

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