Towards a New Paradigm in Water Management: Cochabamba's Water Agenda from an Ethical Approach

Abstract

The Cochabamba Water War (2000) is well renowned for being a part of the civil society versus water service delivery debate. From a situation of service privatization, limited access, and an inexistent institutional framework in 2000, the current situation in the Cochabamba Valley faces increasing water scarcity within a weak institutional set up. To alleviate the situation, the government of Evo Morales has been actively funding projects considering an Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) but confronting customary water rights in rural communities and thus increasing the level of conflict between water uses. Amid these two water management practices appears the Agenda del Agua Cochabamba (AdA)—the Cochabamba Water Agenda—claiming water as part of the commons and not a resource. This paper explains the paradigm’s values behind the conflicting IWRM and water rights’ water management practices and analyses the AdA under a governability framework identifying the barriers and drivers for its implementation.