The new generation of watershed management

Enabling policies

In many ways, the new generation of watershed management is still in its infancy, or at best its adolescence. Partial, local and self-contained experiences in different regions of the world are demonstrating the potential of embedded, collaborative approaches, but also the constraints to change in specific locations and the challenges in scaling-up local experiences. Many of these constraints do not depend on programme design and implementation; they are instead related to the policy and institutional environment in which innovative thrusts develop.

A number of major political and institutional changes are necessary for the new generation of watershed management to mature. These include:

• policy reforms that fully recognize the multiple roles of watershed management in sustainable development and that create an intersectoral framework for implementation;
• the updating, improvement and enforcement of laws affecting watershed management;
• enhancement of the institutional mechanisms that link watershed-level interventions to relevant national, regional and global policies;
• stronger incorporation of sound science and local knowledge in watershed policy-making;
• strengthened capacity building and awareness raising at all levels;
• the creation of mechanisms for long-term financing of collaborative watershed management processes.