Water management crucial to Asia’s water resources

This concern will be among the main areas of focus of a report, called ‘Asian Water and Development Outlook’, that the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (AsDB) is due to release later in November and at the first Asia-Pacific Water Summit in Japan on December 3-4 this year.

For generations, water has been seen as a free, natural resource. But debate continues to revolve around whether water, although a right, should have a certain economic value - a price - attached to it.

"In the next 20 years, the practices and processes of water management will change more than in the past two thousand years," predicted Prof. Asit Biswas, the Indian-born Canadian who heads the Mexico-based Third World Centre for Water Management who won the International Stockholm Water Prize in 2006.

Likewise, many societies consider it the government’s obligation to provide water to the entire populace. "What are the governments’ kitty and taxpayers’ money for?" is a blunt question many would ask.

But the reality is that governments - local, provincial and national - are often clearly short of money for just about everything.

"All rights come with responsibilities attached to them that are placed on the beneficiaries", said Geoff Bridges, a water consultant. "For instance, in water supply, it could be simply to pay the water tariff or not to waste water."

Public-sector water utilities in Asia have been crying for funds to develop their systems, saying that many water users pay marginally or do not pay at all.

Some experts explain that free provision of water does not convey to beneficiaries the financial and resource costs of service provision. This does nothing to encourage consumers to avoid waste and conserve water, and to avoid damaging assets such as public taps, they add.

"Contrary to current belief, I do not believe that water scarcity is a problem," said Prof. Biswas. He believes that the common perception of water as being of a fixed quantity, like oil and gas, is wrong.

"This is a fallacy because in oil and gas you can say this since it’s a non- renewable resource. But water is a renewable resource… if we improve our management practices we can improve it further," he says.

Thus, water industry experts argue that it is important to make consumers realise that clean water is a precious asset that needs to be used economically - and that the best way to do this is to attach a financial value to it.

Various models

There are various models for making water available to poor urban communities, depending on factors ranging from a country’s economic conditions to the legal status of a particular locality.

The word ‘privatisation’, when it comes to social services and water, generates a lot of protests. But privatisation is one thing, and making consumers pay for what and how much they use is another, other water experts argue.

"Investments are needed regularly to modernise the delivery systems, and government subsidies are too low to finance the operation and maintenance cost", said Islam-ul-Haq, managing director of the Water and Sanitation Agency of Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Governments often look toward funding agencies, which are however hardly interested if the projects are not financially sustainable. Thus, governments like those in the Philippines have opted to give ‘water concessions’ to private firms to provide water to residents.

"We have found that it is possible, and it is imperative, that you align your social and environmental goals with business goals," said Antonino Aquino, president of Manila Water.

In the Maldives, when the capital Male urgently needed piped water and sewerage, the private sector was given full rein to design, construct and operate the water system.

Some advocate financing services via cross-subsidisation and partial subsidisation of water supplies. "Charge very little or nothing at all for the first 20 or 30 litres of water and then charge an appropriate cost plus price," suggested Bhanoji Rao, a former professor of economics and public policy at the National University of Singapore.

Zahir Mohmad from the Ministry of Water and Power of Pakistan added: "The real problem is quality of water, and another issue is the equitable distribution of available water for agriculture and domestic level. "There is water available but there are certain sections of the community which do not get it."

Thus, Asian countries need to address the issue of management of the region’s vast water resources. "People will not wait for five to ten years. They will take water now, legally or illegally," warned K.E. Seetharam, principal water and urban development specialist at the AsDB.