 Capacity
building is a cross-cutting issue at the foundation
of many of the changes required to introduce sustainable
water resources management and services and address
the governance issues surrounding the establishment
of an appropriate policy and institutional enabling
environment. Inadequate capacity continues to be a major
constraint to realise water reform. Some of the areas
that require enhanced capacity include, for example,
integrated water resources management, transboundary
waters, gender mainstreaming and institutional/technical
innovations and adaptability.
Technical skills and knowledge will continue to be important for the water sector. The successful implementation of water governance reform will require even more emphasis on skills and capacities related to the management of dialogue and network processes. It is important to develop knowledge and capacities that effectively can respond to situations characterised by complexity, uncertainties, change and trade-offs. Ultimately it has to be people that accomplish transformation. More attention therefore needs to be given to knowledge and capacities that are critical to develop inclusive and flexible water governance systems that can respond to changing social and hydrological conditions.
A part of building capacities is to develop knowledge and mechanisms for experience sharing. For example, the collection and dissemination of illustrative water governance reform cases and assessments can be used for scaling up useful practices to improve water governance reform. However, it is important that efforts to build capacities also focus on going from increased knowledge to its application, that is, action.
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