Best Practices in Global Water Policy: Revisiting Water Mantras

This volume challenges the assumption that dominant water-management solutions are universally effective, neutral and scientifically validated.

Global water policy tends to frame certain concepts and tools – such as river basin organisations, water pricing, drip irrigation, nature-based solutions and wastewater reuse – as ‘best practices’. These ready-made solutions, endorsed by policymakers, development agencies and experts, are widely disseminated across countries with limited critical scrutiny. This book examines how these dominant solutions, while often appearing rational and evidence-based, can obscure trade-offs, negative externalities and unintended consequences. From irrigation modernisation projects that inadvertently increase water consumption due to the rebound effect to water user associations that fail to address deeper governance and equity issues, this book engages with 20 ‘best practices’ to illustrate how universal solutions often ignore the complexity of water politics, institutional settings, cultural specificities and ecological realities. While not dismissing the value of best practices outright, this book argues for a more sceptical, politically aware and context-sensitive approach to water management. It calls for a shift in the burden of proof: rather than accepting a best practice as effective unless proven otherwise, water governance should start by scrutinising the potential externalities, risks and limitations of any proposed intervention.

This book is essential reading for students, academics and professionals in water policy, water governance and environmental management more broadly.

François Molle is Emeritus Director of Research at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), France. He has 40 years of experience in development research in topics such as the analysis of irrigation systems, the governance of river basins and groundwater, water policy and the political ecology of the interaction between society, technology and the environment.

Sylvain Barone is Director of Research at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), France. For the past 15 years, his research has focused on water policy and governance, environmental policy and the politicisation of ecological issues.