Towards co-operative governance in the development and implementation of cross-sectoral policy: water policy as an example

Abstract

Water, because it is so fundamental and irreplaceable to humans and their activities, is an all pervasive issue that underpins the social fabric of every society. This means that water policy is cross-sectoral, directly and indirectly affecting and affected by almost all other sectoral policies such as agriculture, urban development, rural development, health, housing, economic development. Effective implementation of any cross-sectoral policy requires that co-operative governance processes have to be established on the ground, and not just considered as some form of laudable principle. One of the most important steps in moving towards operational co-operative governance is the identification and agreement, by all the relevant and affected sectors, on shared primary objectives. This must be followed by the development of co-ordinated implementation programmes that can effectively achieve these objectives. In this paper, we explore a possible model for initiating co-operative governance processes in cross-sectional policy implementation, using water as an example, and discuss some of the potential applications of this model.