Participants listen to a presentation of a community-owned water system in Nepal

A workshop on communities successfully managing their own water resources and systems in Asia was held as part of a region-wide conference on natural resources.

The People’s Alternative Water Resource Management systems workshops was a half-day workshop during the Asia Pacific Research Network’s conference themed “People and Planet over Profits: Asserting People’s Sovereignty on Natural Resources”.

The main objective of the workshop was to document cases of alternative models of water management in the region, in light of the failures of water privatization as the solution to the water crises.

A total of five commissioned studies from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh were prepared and presented

The case studies were the “Research Study of the Eppawela sub-system in the Anuradhapura district -Sri Lanka” (Green Movement of Sri Lanka), “Community-Based Water Management System: A Case Study of Dhulikhel Drinking Water Project” (WAFED), “Tidal River Management: People’s Initiative to Solve Water Logging in the Southwest Coastal Region of Bangladesh” (Coastal Development Partnership) , “Microhydro Power Systems: A Viable Alternative to Large Dams” (IBON), and “Sustainable Livelihood & Water Management in Lagoon & tank System in Sri Lanka” (Sewalanka Foundation). A critique of the Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), entitled “Reviewing IWRM in Perspective of People’s Wisdom” was also prepared and presented by CDP.

A strategizing session on how to promote these models of water management was conducted after the presentations.