For Dr. Pilar Barría, in charge of Just Water Transition at the Ministry of the Environment, it is essential to understand the various uses of water to overcome the conflict surrounding the water crisis.
Communications UA.- On November 16, 2022, Decree No. 58 of the Ministry of the Environment was published in the Official Gazette, which established the creation of an inter-ministerial committee for just water transition to advise the president on issues related to policy and institutional transformations.
This committee seeks to advance in the just water transition process, taking into account principles of equity, justice, environmental, sustainability and with a gender approach. Response to a transversal diagnosis on the need for changes in the policy, the lack of articulation between public-private sectors and binding spaces for these modifications.
«It is a priority to promote dialogue between actors for water governance that integrates the basin as a basic unit of management. Recognizing the complexity of the transformations that are required» pointed out the representative of the Ministry of the Environment.
The statements were made during the launch on April 24 of the ring project «The social water crisis: development of collaborative governance models in the context of the megadrought in the central-southern zone of Chile». funded by the National Agency for Research and Development and directed by Dr. Paola Bolados, who also directs the Doctorate in Social Sciences at the Autonomous University of Chile.
For Dr. Pilar Barría, the scenario of conflict around water requires a dynamic, flexible proposal in the face of a scenario where there is less water available, problems in the frequency of the service, and extreme events.
«There are conflicts between surveillance boards, and other actors within them, or about the uses of a user and the ways of using that are not understood or accepted by other users. It is essential to create a shared vision that allows integrated management at the basin level to achieve water security,” he adds.
At the same time, the first Basin Councils are being set up in the different regions of the country. Public-private-community organizations, with representatives of different actors in the basin, whether or not they own water use rights.
These seek to establish a vision and planning for the basin and, in a binding manner, generate and promote coordination to implement integrated management measures for water resources. The pilots will allow feedback on the governance model that will be enshrined in a bill that will soon be submitted to the General Secretariat of the Presidency.
“The basin councils do not replace or overlap the functions of other organizations, nor do they replace water user organizations, nor will they assume roles associated with the redistribution of water,” explained Dr. Pilar Barría.
Also present at the activity were Dr. Tatiana Celume, lawyer and project researcher; Carlos Estévez advisor to the Ministry of Public Works and former director of the General Directorate of Water; and Dr. Paola Bolados who called for looking at the water crisis from its social component, with multiple dimensions and different scales.
