Document(s) 14 of 22

A River Runs through It: Cleaning Up the Dnipro River Basin in Ukraine

This brief is based on a case study by Iryna Lyzogub.

In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had the dubious distinction of being the most environmentally degraded of the former USSR republics. Efforts to alleviate the situation were hampered by an ingrained reluctance of officials and decision makers to share information or to take initiative. Overcoming such attitudes was one of the major obstacles faced by IDRC researchers when they undertook a programme designed to clean up the Dnipro River Basin. Patience, perseverance, and the willingness of key Ukrainian actors to adapt to new ways of thinking brought fresh hope for the rebirth of a historic waterway.

At almost 2,300 km, the Dnipro River (also called the Dneiper) is one of the longest rivers in Europe, and for more than half of its length it runs through Ukraine. More than 2,000 years ago the Greek historian Herodotus described the Dnipro as ‘ . . . by far the biggest and the richest river in nutrients . . . with the exception of the Nile in Egypt. . . . The water is clean and it tastes well. It is by far the most beautiful river.’ The modern Dnipro is no longer a natural source of fresh and clean water according to the authors of the book Preserving the Dnipro River (Shevchuk et al. 2005). They write, ‘Each year, industry, agriculture, and municipalities discharge enormous amounts of contaminated wastewater into the Dnipro. Every year, 5.5 million cubic metres of sewage are dumped into the water bodies of Ukraine, which includes 4.2 million cubic metres of contaminated sewage, 2.8 million of which is raw waste.’

Together with neighbouring Russia and Belarus, some 33 million people in 50 cities depend on the waters of the Dnipro River Basin. But they must share those waters with industrial and agricultural needs, as well as hydro-electric and nuclear power facilities. In only a few places does the river still retain the bucolic appearance described by Herodotus.

It was against this background that IDRC’s newly created Office for Central and Eastern Europe Initiatives (OCEEI) undertook the Environmental Management Development in Ukraine (EMDU) programme in the summer of 1994, in collaboration with the UNDP, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The programme was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

A formidable task

From any perspective IDRC’s task was a formidable one, involving a wide range of activities from environmental education and training in project, and environmental management to trans-boundary pollution issues.

There were six components to the EMDU programme, which continued through a second phase until 2001. They were:

1. Water pollution control: a baseline water quality study conducted in collaboration with three Ukrainian institutes. This included some short-term training by a Canadian specialist and the provision of some critical lab equipment.
   
   
2. Water toxicology: demonstrating six simple, inexpensive but effective tests for the presence of toxins.
   
   
3. Information systems development: including national and regional systems as well as a national atlas of Ukraine.
   
   
4. A series of pilot projects: ranging from drinking water treatment technology to groundwater protection and shoreline rehabilitation.
   
   
5. Environmental audits and entrepreneurship: including both large and small industries.
   
   
6. Public outreach: developing various forms of media, including videos and television programmes to raise public awareness of environmental issues.

It was an ambitious capacity building programme, but if it was to succeed, the IDRC team needed to first overcome another kind of environmental issue—an attitudinal one. Ukraine in the early post-Soviet years was in a deep economic crisis, and the government was reluctant to pursue economic and political reforms. This was also ‘a period of psychological crisis,’ according to Vasyl Shevchuk, former Minister of Environmental Protection and Nuclear Safety, who served as chairman of the programme’s Ukrainian Management Committee (UMC).

Expanding policy capacities

During Soviet times, people learned that ‘initiative is punishable’, and this lesson proved to be difficult to forget, especially under conditions where the political situation remained uncertain. ‘People are inert, passive, and scared. They always lived in fear. It is difficult to change our generation,’ explained Kostantyn Chebotko, Head of the Hydrochemistry Department at the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute. Adding hopefully, ‘The next generation might be more efficient.’

There were other hurdles to overcome in addition to what many referred to as the ‘Soviet caution’. A law dating back to 1937 decreed that information about the water supply of cities was secret. Participants in the programme who revealed this information to foreigners faced possible legal action. Some Ukrainian research institutions were reluctant to share information, or insisted on being paid for it. And when it came to paying for anything, there was initially no functioning banking system. Transactions were made in cash or barter.

Ukraine was newly independent at this time and just beginning to change its political structures and processes. Not surprisingly, there were constant changes at all levels in the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, including several ministers. With every change new people appeared, with new views about what should, or should not be done.

Remarkably, despite all of the obstacles and the constraints, the programme achieved all of its objectives, and in the process established a lasting relationship between Ukrainian and Canadian scientists. It also had a positive influence on environmental policy and legislation in Ukraine. The key factor in the programme’s success proved to be the UMC, which from the outset involved senior decision makers from both the government and the research field. This was important according to Grygory Semchuk, a UMC member who was First Deputy (equivalent to Deputy Minister) with the State Committee on Construction, Architecture, and Housing Policy.

’The work of the Committee was not given to people who did not have power, who did not have influence. This provided a positive result. There was a psychological aspect as well. While considering a project, we discussed it and expressed our views with no fear,’ Semchuk said, adding that discipline and a systematic approach were also important.

The Committee worked systematically, therefore there was a positive result. Everyone knew that each last Friday of the month the meeting at Shevchuk’s office should be attended. If a person did not attend a meeting he would be removed. There was a discipline.

As chairman of the UMC, Vasyl Shevchuk was credited by many of the participants for the much of the programme’s success.

Almost all the projects as well as the EMDU programme as a whole, presumed policy influence from the very beginning. The active participation and involvement of decision makers was important, and resulted in a higher potential of influencing the relevant policies. And just as the involvement of government increased the potential for policy influence, the involvement of senior research people facilitated the links between researchers and decision makers.

Affecting policy regimes

One important effect of the projects funded through the IDRC programme was the revival of institutions that were failing because of lack of government funding. The protracted economic crisis in the Ukraine had seriously affected scientists—salaries were not paid, equipment was not purchased, and in winter many worked in offices that were only a few degrees above freezing. ‘The international programs, and the IDRC program in particular, gave us hope. These programs allowed us not to fall into despair’ said Konstantyn Chebotko.

Another participant, Olexander Kolodiazhny from the Space Research Institute, added that ‘This program allowed us to achieve a higher level of professionalism. We had to study GIS technologies and the Internet more precisely, and we learned remote sensing.’

The programme also brought together institutions that had never before collaborated, says Anatoly Yatsyk, a UMC member and director of the Scientific Research Institute for Water and Ecological Problems. ‘Everyone worked separately—my institute was working on water issues, other institutes dealt with different issues. . . . Within the IDRC program all of us united to provide a complex approach to resolve the problems of the Dnipro River,’ Yatsyk says.

The revival of the scientific institutions also stimulated an influx of postgraduate students and resulted in the publication of a series of textbooks based on the work done under the programme. The textbooks continue to be used in universities, and for training and retraining professionals in the field, according to Vasyl Shevchuk. For example, a textbook on hydro-ecology that is now widely used in university programmes in Russia and Belarus, as well as in Ukraine, was prepared and published as a direct result of the EMDU programme.

For more general audiences, a series of videos was prepared illustrating the problems facing the Dnipro River Basin and the work that is being done to clean up the river. Several of these have been broadcast on national television, and at the instigation of Dr Shevchuk hundreds of copies of the videos have been distributed to schools and ecological centres for young people across the country.

Broadening policy horizons

The programme also provided support for some innovative projects, such as the production of organomineral fertilizers from the sediments that result from drinking water treatment. Many countries burn these sediments, or dump them into the ocean, but Ukraine became the first country to develop a technique to convert them to fertilizer, according to Konstantyn Chebotko, who managed the pilot project. The project would not have been successful without IDRC’s financial support, and the high level of professionalism required under the EMDU programme, he adds.

Bringing the results of such projects to the attention of the international scientific community initially presented difficulties because Ukrainian research institutions did not use internationally recognized standards. Working with IDRC on the EMDU programme reinforced the necessity of introducing international standards in Ukraine. Learning international standards also enabled Ukrainian researchers to enter the international scientific community. Several researchers who were active in the EMDU programme have had their work published in international scientific journals and presented their results at international conferences.

Closer to home, the researchers have had the satisfaction of seeing the results of their work used as the basis for two pieces of national legislation: the National Programme on Ecological Rehabilitation of the Dnipro Basin and the law on Drinking Water Improvement. The programme was recently adopted by Ukraine’s Supreme Council, the Verhovna Rada. ‘This was our greatest political achievement,’ says Anatoly Yatsyk.

In addition, numerous regulations supporting the National Programme, such as the one for estimating surface water quality, were developed within the EMDU projects. And the work of implementing the National Programme continues as an increased environmental awareness brings closer cooperation between Ukraine’s scientific and government institutions.

Summing it all up, the programme’s then Regional Director in Kyiv, Myron Lahola, comments:

What I know for sure is that IDRC left a legacy here that Canadians are people that are easy to work with, are not only friendly but also diplomatic . . . who do things using a process of consensus building. I have heard this not only from Ukrainians but from other donor organizations. On a global scale, one of the most important things you can develop is trust and friendship between countries.

Box 11.1: The Canadians are Coming! The Canadians are Coming!

Making the Most of Scarce Resources: Wastewater Recovery and Urban Farming in the Middle East

This brief is based on a case study by Eman Surani.

Population growth, rapid urbanization, and the shortage of water have led to rising food insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa. People in the region address this complex set of problems by encouraging urban agriculture and by using recycled water to feed it. In Jordan and other countries, city farms are irrigated with ‘greywater’ drawn from showers, bathrooms, and sinks. This innovative response, supported by IDRC, has had a wide-ranging influence on public policy.

Although ‘urban agriculture’ has been practiced for as long as cities have existed, only in recent years has the world awakened to the importance of city farming in ensuring that people have enough to eat.

In fact, urban agriculture is booming. The UNDP estimates the number of city farmers at about 800 million worldwide. Most are poor or middle-class people who raise livestock and grow produce to feed their families and to generate extra income. In the process, they recycle waste, reuse water, and put idle land to productive use.

In the Middle East and North Africa, already one of the planet’s most arid regions, the amount of water available to each person is actually decreasing. This is due mainly to the rapid rise in population. The inventory of water is expected to decline to 725 cubic metres per capita per year (m³pcpy)—far below 1,000 m³pcpy, the benchmark indicator of severe water scarcity.

This dire situation is aggravated by increasing urbanization in the region. As more people move to the cities, more water is likely to be diverted away from agriculture and channelled into built-up areas for drinking and domestic purposes. Thus, the region may suffer increasingly from the related problems of food insecurity and water scarcity. This crisis is particularly severe in Jordan.

Jordan is a small country of about 5.2 million people. Its economy has been in decline for years. About 7 per cent of the population earns less than the international poverty line of US $1 a day. According to the UNDP, ‘Jordan’s high population growth and unprecedented urbanization rate threaten its recent economic gains. Its population growth is 2.7 per cent, and the proportion of its population living in urban areas, already 73 per cent, is expected to reach 80 per cent by 2015.’

These economic and demographic trends jeopardize the food and water security of Jordan’s poor, more and more of whom are found in towns and cities. According to the World Bank, high population growth over the past 20 years has pushed Jordan’s per capita water availability to below 198 m³pcpy. Clearly, water scarcity on such a dramatic scale is sufficient to impede development and to harm human health.

As a result of this crisis, attitudes towards water management in Jordan have undergone a radical shift. In the past, water was viewed as a free public good, but now everyone accepts that it has an economic value. Conservation, as well as wastewater treatment and reuse, are considered priorities, and so is research into these measures.

The IDRC’s urban agriculture programme has been supporting research and development activities that bolster the food security and incomes of the poor, while maintaining public health and a clean urban environment. As part of this initiative, during 1998–2003, IDRC sponsored a series of research projects to investigate the use of greywater in urban agriculture. These studies have had an important influence on water management policies in Jordan and elsewhere in the region.

What was done: The urban agriculture and greywater projects

The initial study was mainly a data gathering exercise. It compiled for the first time reliable information about the nature and extent of urban farming. Researchers focused on the capital city, Amman, and examined a range of issues with a view to suggesting policy changes.

Among the more interesting findings were that one in six Amman households practiced urban agriculture, that gender parity prevailed and the sexes performed equal portions of the work (unlike the men, however, most women went unpaid), and that untreated greywater was already being used by 40 per cent of farming households. Significantly, the study found that no policies or regulations specific to urban agriculture existed in Jordan, indeed that there was little official recognition of its benefits for strengthening food security.

A second project, conducted in the West Bank (Palestine), was primarily technical in nature. It sought to improve the design of a small-scale trickling filter for treating greywater for reuse in home gardens. The researchers tested ‘domestic wastewater treatment plants’—essentially, recycled plastic shampoo barrels with a filtration media of valley gravel and recycled plastic soft drink bottles. Using such cheap and readily available materials, an impressive average of 56 per cent greywater recovery was achieved.

Incidentally, this project also responded to cultural and religious concerns about the use of recycled wastewater by engaging local sheiks to advise the community on the advantages of greywater.

Meanwhile, during 1997–99, CARE Australia carried out a very successful pilot project in southern Jordan to test soil and water conservation techniques of ‘permanent agriculture’ or ‘permaculture’. An IDRC funded evaluation identified this project’s broad economic and cultural impact: it raised the income of participating families, promoted cooperation, enhanced a sound sense of home economics and marketing, and formalized awareness about water conservation and reuse. Notably, female participants reported feeling more independent and proud because of the income they generated, the skills they gained, and their enhanced ability to feed their families.

Finally, the ambitious Greywater Reuse Project in Tafila, Jordan, was inspired by the promising outcomes of the earlier three programmes and was designed to build on the lessons learned from them. It was carried out during 2001–03.

The immediate goal was to improve a system for reusing greywater in home gardens in Jordan. Its broader goals were to help the peri-urban poor preserve fresh water, achieve food security, and generate income, all the while protecting the environment.

The project’s achievements were far-reaching. It increased greywater recovery, and made greywater easier and safer to handle. It minimized environmental impacts by encouraging the production and marketing of cheaper organic soaps. It improved permaculture practices by enhancing irrigation systems, and by fostering the adoption of new crops more tolerant of greywater. In particular, it promoted policy changes that will encourage wider greywater acceptance in Jordan.

What was learned: The influence of research on public policy

In 2001, IDRC launched a strategic evaluation of the policy influence of the research it has supported. To assess the influence of the greywater projects, the Centre engaged Eman Surani, who surveyed the work done and outlined six concrete instances of ‘policy influence’.

Revision of housing codes and launch of national committee to formulate Greywater Reuse Guidelines

The initial project, the data gathering exercise, had a direct influence on public policy, as one of its startling discoveries was that laws and regulations governing city farming were non-existent in Jordan. This finding helped spur the process of policy setting that is underway.

The Greywater Reuse Project has gone a long way towards filling this policy gap. This effort led, for example, to a proposal to modify domestic building codes to allow greywater use without the need for plumbing modifications. In addition, it prompted the establishment of a new National Committee to formulate Greywater Reuse Guidelines.

Policymakers become communicators

In a form of indirect policy influence, government officials who were not involved in implementing these research projects, nonetheless became enthusiastic communicators of their findings. Specifically, officers with Jordan’s Department of Statistics, charged with designing its website, decided to add the results of the initial project to the home page for broader dissemination to the donor and research communities.

Replication of the model

The Jordan and Palestine projects were built stepwise, one upon the other, and in their turn they fostered similar efforts elsewhere in the region. Dr Murad Jabay Bino of the Inter-Islamic Network on Water Resources Development and Management (INWRDAM) observes, ‘The projects in Palestine and Jordan are now spreading to Lebanon, and Syria has expressed its interest as well.’ This replication effect is encouraged by a continually evolving project structure adapted to the cultural context of each country.

Within Jordan, replication has occurred because of key partnerships between INWRDAM, the recognized technical expert, and other agencies:

1. CARE Jordan installed the greywater system in all its projects. In five communities, 53 units were put in place by INWRDAM on behalf of CARE, in a scheme funded by the European Union.
   
   
2. INWRDAM signed a memorandum of understanding with the Regional Centre on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development for the Near East for cooperation in training people in the application of greywater.
   
   
3. Drawing upon INWRDAM’s expertise, a ‘water demand management unit’ is being established at the Water Authority of Jordan to help coordinate water issues for the country.
   
   
4. Again drawing upon INWRDAM, codes are being revised so that greywater can be used for the beautification of tourist attractions.

Hyderabad declaration

In November 2002, an important international meeting on the topic of wastewater use in agriculture, sponsored by IDRC and other organizations, took place in Hyderabad, India. Two major breakthroughs occurred.

The first was a commitment by the World Health Organization to consider new evidence— including IDRC’s reports on its greywater projects—in reviewing its guidelines for wastewater use in agriculture.

The second was the Hyderabad Declaration on Wastewater Use in Agriculture, a document drafted by researchers and practitioners representing 27 international bodies and national institutions from 18 countries. This statement expresses worldwide concern about ensuring safe water reuse, and sets out a common global agenda of building a wastewater ‘community of practice’.

Networks formed

These projects brought together, for the first time, governments, the private sector, and the research community. Naser Faruqui of IDRC observed that Jordan is a small country and so ‘all the individuals in the Jordanian research, engineering, and policymaking communities know each other and invite each other to workshops.’

While it is unusual for government officials and farmers to meet openly and to discuss issues of common concern, networking has occurred also at the local level, among policymakers, researchers, and beneficiaries.

Capacity building of policymakers

The IDRC-supported projects have trained, educated, and raised awareness levels of policymakers about greywater reuse.

For example, Jordan’s Ministry of Social Development is adapting lessons learned from the projects, and teaching new trades to the poor. In addition to plumbing skills and agricultural techniques, these include expertise in financial and administrative management, communications, and networking.

In addition, researchers have spread knowledge about their projects widely, and have briefed government officials, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other scholars and researchers.

Why it works: Factors affecting research influence on policy

Surani went to considerable lengths to analyze why these projects have been so successful in influencing policy, and also to identify the remaining challenges.

Indeed, work remains to be done. In Surani’s view, some factors that may have hindered the policy influence of these projects are: the failure to focus explicitly on gender equality as a core research theme and policy goal; the scarcity of funds for project evaluation; the ‘lack of a learning environment’ in some sectors of the Jordanian government; the insufficient use of the mass media; the administrative weakness of the Palestinian authority; and, initially at least, religious beliefs unsympathetic to the idea of wastewater reuse.

Despite these obstacles, the policy influence of these projects is clear. Many factors gave rise to this success: the strategic use of limited resources, in that lessons learned in one project were applied to subsequent projects; the warm personal links between IDRC and Jordanian partners; the awareness that these were not ‘ivory tower’ research projects, but that they offered immediate answers to pressing human problems; the sympathetic political environment in Jordan, long worried about the water crisis and receptive to scientific solutions; the reputation and credibility of the highly respected individuals and organizations involved in implementation; and the wide dissemination of research findings using different formats appropriate to different audiences.

Surani highlighted two particular factors leading to success. First, much of the research demonstrated the politically attractive link between environmental sustainability and economic development, that is to say, between wastewater recovery and poverty alleviation. Second, IDRC took care to develop a long-term strategic plan and sponsored successive projects each built upon earlier work. According to INWRDAM’s Dr Bino, having carried out ‘a well-defined project with clear objectives... IDRC has good capacity to improve on the lessons learnt in future for follow-up projects.’

Searching for an Interim Irrigation Solution: Researchers in Syria Investigate Whether, under Some Conditions, Brackish Water Can be Used for Irrigation without Damaging Soil

This brief is based on a case study by Bryon Gillespie.

Economically dependent upon agriculture and facing a deepening water crisis, Syria needs to find ways to make its limited water go further. As farmers turn to irrigating with saline water, IDRC-supported researchers proposed that perhaps they should be allowed to continue—if guidelines for using brackish water can be established. But who are most likely to pay attention to the researchers’ findings: government officials, farmers, or regional agencies?

In Syria—as in neighbouring Middle-Eastern countries—access to water is a daunting problem.

The World Bank classifies the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region as one of the driest areas of the world. With a current region-wide availability of water estimated at 1200 m³pcpy, this group of countries hovers only marginally above the Bank’s benchmark of 1,000 cubic metres of available water per capita per year—a cut-off point below which countries are considered to have a serious water shortage. By this definition, Syria, one of the most severely parched countries within the MENA group, can already be considered to be in crisis: its current water availability is calculated at 432 m³pcpy—far below the World Bank’s demarcation point for water scarcity. And the situation appears destined to deteriorate further. Pressure from a young and growing population and the demands of an economically crucial agricultural sector are expected to lower Syria’s available water to a mere 160 cubic metres by 2025.

Given the pressures that are already being felt, Syrian farmers have been implementing several adaptive measures that, in the long run, may make matters worse. For example, the digging of new wells—most of them illegal—has contributed to a decline in ground water levels, as wells are pumped faster than they can be renewed. Farmers are also increasingly using brackish water to irrigate their crops, a practice that is likely to increase the salinity of the soil and in turn lower agricultural productivity.

Farmers’ survival tactics

Higher salt levels in the soil are normal in the arid climatic conditions typical of Syria’s deserts and steppes. Crystallized salts are left at the soil surface—at the interface between the land and air—as water is drawn upward through the soil and evaporates into the atmosphere. In the past this has not posed serious problems: under the traditional Syrian system of crop rotation, which leaves the land fallow for extended periods, levels of salt in topsoil have remained relatively low.

Recent changes in agricultural practices, however, have altered the picture. Intensive agriculture involving more frequent crop rotations has increased the volumes of water moving through the soil, thereby boosting its salinity. The salt content of soil and groundwater have also been increased by the growing practice of ‘flood irrigation’, whereby large volumes of water are pumped onto fields, creating standing pools that eventually percolate down through the soil. This has resulted in more salt finding its way into underground reservoirs and wells. In turn, the increasing salinity of groundwater, which is used for irrigation, has become a key contributor to the elevated salt levels in the soil.

The implications of this trend are profound and disturbing. Syria sees a robust agricultural sector as central to its plans, both for food security and for future economic growth. Those plans would fall apart, however, if increased soil salinity led to decreased productivity of agricultural lands.

Yet at the same time, it would be unrealistic to expect farmers to simply stop irrigating with brackish water. For some, it is the only type of water they have. It is estimated, for example, that over 70 per cent of Syrian farmers use flood irrigation and that many continue to do so after their wells have become saline.

Given that these practices are so firmly established, the Brackish Water Project set out to investigate if there were circumstances under which saline water could be safely used for irrigation. The group hoped to establish parameters that would instruct farmers and government on how to use brackish water without threatening the environment, or significantly diminishing the productivity of the soil (and, by extension, farmers’ livelihoods). In doing so, they would formulate a ‘bridge’ strategy where current practices could be continued, in a modified form, until more permanent solutions to MENA’s water crisis are found. Such a strategy would be of interest not just in Syria but across the region.

Water, public policy, and IDRC

For IDRC, supporting the Brackish Water Project was a natural fit, because the project’s goals intersected with at least two of the Centre’s ongoing thematic interests. First, IDRC has a history of supporting research on water that focuses on small-scale, decentralized, local level solutions. IDRC’s small-scale orientation meshed with the approach of researchers from the International Centre for Agriculture in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Syria’s University of Aleppo, and Canada’s McGill University, who undertook the research. The Syrian government had also expressed its interest in small-scale, demand-side approaches to water through its promotion of efficient sprinkler and drip irrigation technologies.

Another long-term interest for IDRC is the question of how research can inform and influence government policy. On this front, however, it became increasingly clear that the project’s potential was constrained by the nature of the Syrian political system, and by a policy formation process that some of the foreign researchers connected with the project described as ‘opaque’ and difficult to understand.

In the best of circumstances, policy-oriented research can stimulate vigorous public debate, allowing for different options to be aired with, it is hoped, the best choices filtering upward to the attention of the bureaucrats and politicians who set the national agenda.

But this is unlikely to happen under a political system such as Syria’s. As Bryon Gillespie, who evaluated the policy influence of the project for IDRC, states, ‘Policy decisions are made at the top, and are not offered for public scrutiny.’ Any opportunity to influence how top officials make their decisions comes through the apparatus of the ruling Ba’th party, rather than through the country’s six-party, 250 member elected legislature (which is generally taken to operate as a ‘rubber stamp’), or civil society organizations.

Since the current regime came into power in 1970, Syrian agricultural policy has reflected the country’s Soviet-inspired, centrally managed economic model. Recently, however, President Bashar Al Asad, who assumed power in 2000, has instituted limited economic reforms. The bureaucracy’s role has changed from simply commanding that quotas be met, to providing farmers with technical advice and offering financial incentives, for example, by having marketing agencies buy strategically important crops at preferential prices.

What kind of research role?

Despite such cautious steps towards liberalization, policy formation in Syria remains largely insulated from outside input. This appears to have limited the scope of the Brackish Water Project. Gillespie observed, for example, that, ‘I saw no social research, nor any research which looked into agricultural policies.’

More broadly, the role and value of research within the Syrian system remains an open question. Gillespie noted, for example, that several experts he had spoken to remarked that ‘in Syria it is frequently the case that the technical reports [produced by the government’s own research agencies] get shelved and go unread at higher levels.’ Others, however, say that research can be effective when it is targeted to questions that officials are actively considering. While researchers will generally not be invited to contribute to the actual formation of policy, they are sometimes enlisted in a supportive role, providing technical advice on what means will be most effective in achieving already formulated goals.

’Influencing the policy comes as you find technologies or recommendations that respond to the needs of the decision makers at the time when they want to formulate policies,’ says Dr Theib Oweis, Senior Water Specialist with ICARDA.

Oweis suggests that donors sometimes place too much emphasis on the direct impact of research on policy formulation. ‘Not everything requires policy changes,’ he says, ‘although we know that policies are instrumental in making changes.’

Researchers also have to make sure that even the terminology they use aligns with the government’s broader political objectives. For instance, the phrase ‘water demand management’—commonly used by IDRC sponsored researchers—is problematic in Syria. The government believes it shifts focus towards domestic consumption and away from issues of international access to water. The phrase is therefore seen as undermining Syria’s case for access to water that has brought it into competition with Turkey, Iraq, and other neighbours.

Practical and political influence

Despite the apparent impenetrability of Syria’s policymaking process, there was one occasion where the Brackish Water Project’s research did appear to have a direct influence on policy. Research examining the variables that affect the impact of saline water on soil indicated that salt accumulation is most severe in heavier clay soils. After these findings were presented at a conference where Ministry of Irrigation officials were present, a decree was issued forbidding farmers to irrigate high clay content fields with drainage water, which is likely to have high levels of salt.

Other than that, the project’s influence has so far been felt outside the sphere of formal policymaking. Researchers reported, for instance, that after the findings of a master’s thesis funded by the project—which showed, among other things, that the sham 6 variety of wheat is most resistant to the effects of salt—the demand for sham 6 on the black market increased in the area where the experiments took place. This indicates that the research helped change farmers’ outlook and influenced their practices.

Gillespie suggests, however, that the most significant impacts of the project fall under the rubrics of ‘expanding policy capacities’ and ‘broadening policy horizons’. For example, several young Syrian researchers, whose research and graduate studies were supported by the project, are now employed by the ministries of agriculture and irrigation. Bringing their knowledge and experience to their current positions, their presence indicates an effective expansion of research capacity within Syrian institutions. It also promises to bring new perspectives into the culture of the Syrian research community. For example, the researchers’ experience of conducting experiments in farmers’ fields—rather than at isolated research stations—was new in Syria.

Some signs of change?

A similar expansion of capacity took place when one of the senior participants in the project was appointed—coincidentally, rather than as a direct result of the project’s work—to the position of Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform. In his new role as minister, Dr Noureddin Mona instituted a series of reforms intended to elevate the stature of research within the ministry. While Mona was minister only for a short time, it is possible that the ascent of members of the research community into decision-making roles may lead to a new reality where research becomes a stronger contributor to policy formulation.

Gillespie considers the most important impact of the Brackish Water Project to have occurred on the regional stage. The creation of the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), headquartered in Dubai, speaks volumes about the growing currency of the idea that standards can be established for the safe use of brackish water—an idea that was not part of the debate on the mid-east water shortage before the project first held it up to scrutiny.

Changing Water Policy by Degrees: A Project Initially Ignored by Government Has become Part of a Paradigm Shift

This brief is based on a case study by Tracy Tuplin.

When Tunisia set its sights on averting an approaching water crisis, it concentrated overwhelmingly on increasing supply. An IDRC-supported research project with a focus on demand did little to change this. But the project seems to have contributed to a longer-term shift in outlook. Today, it also provides a reminder of the need to communicate technical findings in ways policymakers understand.

Tunisia is an economic success story—but excessive demands on the country’s limited water supply may compromise that success.

With annual growth rates reaching as high as 5 per cent, Tunisia saw its per capita income increase more than five-fold between 1960 and 1997. Meanwhile, the proportion of its population living below the poverty line dropped from 22 per cent to 6.2 per cent between 1975 and 1995.

Advances such as these have catapulted Tunisia out of the ranks of underdeveloped countries. Now considered an ‘emergent economy’, three-quarters of Tunisia’s population are classified as middle class. This positive economic portrait and generally equitable distribution of wealth have also helped Tunisia avoid the political instability that has plagued many other countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa. One remarkable feature of Tunisia’s accomplishments is that they have occurred despite a water shortage. With an annual water supply of 430 cubic metres per person, Tunisia is well below the World Bank’s definition of a water-scarce country, that is, one with less than 1,000 cubic metres per person.

Now, there are clouds on the horizon. Agriculture and other sectors that have propelled Tunisia’s growth have been developed with little regard to water efficiency, raising the prospect of a depletion of water stocks that could trigger a crisis. The government took aim at this problem in a policy paper released in 1990, but its solutions focused mainly on the costly process of developing new supplies. References to water conservation remained vague and unconnected to the government’s broader strategy.

Expanding the equation

IDRC saw an opportunity to broaden the policy debate in Tunisia. Around the same time that Tunisia released its policy paper, the Centre began a research programme on Water Demand Management (WDM) strategies, that is, looking primarily at demand rather than supply.

Researchers believed that Tunisia clearly stood to benefit from this kind of approach. Since most of its new water supplies had been identified or developed, the potential for Tunisia to meet future demand by boosting supplies was limited. More promising were the avenues being opened up by researchers like Professor Mohammed Salah Matoussi of Tunis University, a rising academic star who was beginning to explore the roles that economic mechanisms, such as tariffs, could play in promoting water conservation.

In supporting Professor Matoussi’s research, IDRC saw the potential for Tunisia to benefit both environmentally and economically. An IDRC study of the project (written by Tracy Tuplin, based on research by IDRC’s Sarah Earl and Bryon Gillespie) recounts that: ‘The principal objective of the WDM in Tunisia project was to develop an integrated water demand management strategy in Tunisia that would result in more effective use of limited water resources, prevent rationing in the face of eventual shortage, and delay heavy infrastructure investments to increase supply.’

IDRC also hoped that any success it achieved with WDM in Tunisia would serve as an example to other countries in the region.

An intention to influence policy

From the outset, the plan was to achieve those goals by directly influencing policymakers. Tuplin writes that, when the project’s parameters were first defined, ‘significant time was spent on . . . reviewing strategies to ensure the work would inform water policy in the region.’ It was clearly understood that there should be ‘more focus on policy implications rather than the development of economic models.’

For a while, it appeared that the project would make its mark in Tunisia’s policymaking arena. Partway through the project’s lifespan, internal IDRC documents showed considerable enthusiasm for results such as the citation of the project’s research in government reports, and an apparently new interest by bureaucrats in issues like tariff systems. One report concluded that: ‘This has been a highly successful project that physically succeeded in drawing attention to the demand side of water management.’ Yet entering the home stretch, much of the optimism faded. It became apparent that the primary result of the project would be the publication of academic papers, to which policymakers paid little attention. What caused this dramatic shift? Years after the project ended, Earl and Gillespie’s interviews both with the project researchers and the Tunisian officials shed some light on the matter.

The interviews reveal researchers’ critical view of their counterparts in government—with government officials similarly disdainful of the researchers’ approach. This state of mutual distrust conforms to theorist Nathan Caplan’s ‘two communities’ hypothesis, which holds that the research community and the bureaucracy are often separated by significant differences in behaviour, expectations, and perceptions.

One Ministry of Agriculture official acknowledges that such a cultural divide does exist in Tunisia. He suggests that the rift could be mended if there was more contact between the two groups at dissemination events, and if both sides modified their approaches. Academic researchers, he says, need to do a better job at summarizing their research (so that busy bureaucrats can read them), and should take on more applied research. Policymakers, on the other hand, should communicate more clearly the problems they need to have answered.

Indirect impacts on policy

Does the failure of the researchers to forge a direct link with policymakers mean that the project was a failure?

The way that events have unfolded since the project ended suggests that the likely answer is ‘no’. Within Tunisia, water demand management has become a supporting plank in the government’s water policy—one of the three interlocking approaches to managing this critical resource. More broadly, the Water Demand Management Forum (WDMF) has moved the issue to centre stage, through conferences involving participants from eleven countries in the region. A cornerstone of WDM is the role of economic analysis and economic instruments in promoting conservation. While this approach is now widely accepted, it was new when Professor Matoussi championed it in Tunisia in the early 1990s.

All this indicates that, in the longer term, the Tunisian researchers’ ideas did filter into the policymaking sphere.

Evert Lindquist has examined the ability of research to influence policy through circuitous, indirect means. One of those means is expanding policy capacities, that is, facilitating the creation of knowledge or competence in individuals or organizations that can later be put to use in some other context.

The WDM in Tunisia project clearly created such an expansion of capacity by allowing Professor Matoussi, a leading innovator in the application of economic theory to water management, to refine his approach and methods. The project also supported a number of graduate students examining the same issues. Cumulatively, this support led to Professor Matoussi’s ideas having a sustained presence in the country and in the region. Writes Tuplin: ‘IDRC support to this project helped to create the first group in Tunisia with the capacity to analyze water issues from a quantitative economics perspective.’ Lindquist also notes that research can have a longer-term influence over policy by broadening policy horizons. In other words, researchers can put new concepts into circulation that may stimulate policymakers to frame issues in different ways or engage in different types of debates. Again, there is evidence that WDM in Tunisia did this. As David Brooks, the IDRC project officer during the latter part of the project observed, its emphasis on water demand brought policymakers into contact with an approach that seemed radical at the time it was first raised.

Through their involvement in water networks, however, project participants were able to advance the idea that water demand is not a fixed factor, as it had been assumed, but a variable that would respond to economic pressures. Within Tunisia, team members have interacted with the National Society for Water Exploitation and Distribution (SONEDE), while regionally Professor Matoussi has been active in the Water Demand Management Forum, which has made policy influence one of its major concerns.

Looking for direct links

But are these indirect influences on policy the best that researchers could have hoped for? Was it inevitable that WDM in Tunisia would fall short of its goal of directly influencing policymakers during the project’s tenure?

Earl and Gillespie’s post mortem of the project provides some instructive ideas about how productive links between researchers and policymakers can be cultivated. Their findings indicate that this project’s failure to reach policymakers in the short-term was likely not because the task was too daunting, but rather because the right strategies were not followed.

There was, for example, no clear plan on how to communicate the research findings. Highly technical documents were not translated into popular language that would have made project results understandable to non-mathematicians. Although workshops were held, they were aimed primarily at academic audiences. Similarly, the researchers’ papers were published in academic journals, some of which were not available in Tunisia. All this was compounded by restrictions on internet access, which scuttled plans for a project website.

In turn, the failure to develop a communications plan appears to have deeper roots in the project’s design. The team was dominated by specialists, and lacked a member specifically responsible for dealing with policymakers. Additionally, since researchers were offered minimal compensation, the ability to publish academic papers became a more important reward for their work. Translating their findings into policy-friendly language was not something the researchers saw as their role.

Tuplin writes that norms have changed since WDM in Tunisia was launched. Now, IDRC and its partners pay more attention to the policy and communications dimensions of projects. ‘Today,’ she suggests, ‘IDRC may look for “policy entrepreneurs” or people able to advocate change and adept at reading the environment both inside and outside government.’

Overall, what has become clear is that drawing out the policy implications of research, and communicating them to the people who steer the ship of public policy are not things that will happen on their own. Rather, they are crucial tasks that must be planned and budgeted for, from the outset of research projects. Writes Tuplin: ‘Research alone, no matter how good, is not enough to draw policymakers’ attention to important and relevant issues.’

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