Abstract
In the last decades, policy reforms, new instruments development, and economic resources investment have taken place in water sanitation in Mexico; however, the intended goals have not been accomplished. The percentage of treated wastewater as intended in the last two federal water plans has not been achieved. The creation of River Basin Commissions and the decentralisation process have also faced challenges. In the case of Tlaxcala, the River Basin Commission exists only on paper and the municipalities do not have the resources to fulfil the water treatment responsibilities transferred to them. This lack of results poses the question whether the context was sufficiently considered when the reforms were enacted. In this research, we will study the Tlaxcala Atoyac sub-basin, where water treatment policy reforms have taken place recently with a more context sensitive approach. We will apply the Governance Assessment Tool in order to find out whether the last reforms are indeed apt for the context. The Governance Assessment Tool includes four qualities, namely extent, coherence, flexibility, and intensity. The assessment allows deeper understanding of the governance context. Data collection involved semi-structured in-depth interviews with stakeholders. The research concludes that the observed combination of qualities creates a governance context that partially supports the implementation of the policy. This has helped to increase the percentage of wastewater treated, but the water quality goals set by the River Classification have not been achieved. With the last reforms, in this hierarchical context, decreasing the participation of municipal government levels has been shown to be instrumental for improving water treatment plants implementation policy, although many challenges remain to be addressed.
Highlights
During the last decades of policy reforms, new instruments have been developed and substantial economic resources have been invested to improve water sanitation quality in Mexico
We focus on Tlaxcala’s Alto Atoyac sub-basin, where almost 80% of the state population lives and whose main river Zahuapan, a tributary of the Atoyac River, is considered the third most polluted in Mexico
We found that the reforms to promote a more integrated water management and decentralisation in Tlaxcala have failed to provide sufficient results
Summary
During the last decades of policy reforms, new instruments have been developed and substantial economic resources have been invested to improve water sanitation quality in Mexico. The Alto Atoyac sub-basin has called national attention as well as media coverage, since the river pollution affects more than two million people in the states of Tlaxcala and Puebla [5], The NGO Fray Julian Garces from Tlaxcala, produced a documentary about the health impacts on the population that lives close to the river, and the media have reported cases of leukaemia and respiratory diseases [6]. In the case of Tlaxcala, the federal government created the Atoyac-Zahuapan River Basin Commission on 26 November 2009. Commission shows that following the worldwide trend towards decentralisation in water management could not produce the expected results in a centralised policy making context. The central question we ask in this article is: how apt have the water treatment policy reforms been for the governance context in Tlaxcala’s Alto Atoyac sub-basin?. Assessment Tool (GAT), which includes descriptive-analytical and semi-normative elements
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