Participation in river basin committees: reflections on representation and representativeness

• Autor(a) principal: Matos, Fernanda
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Dias, Reinaldo, Carrieri, Alexandre de Pádua
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Research, Society and Development
• Texto Completo: https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/30776
• topic: Comité de cuenca; Recursos hídricos; Representación; Participación; Gobernancia.; Basin committee; Water security; Representation; Participation; Governance.; Comitês de bacia; Representação; Participação; Recursos hídricos; Governança.

Participation has been a key feature in the implementation of River Basin Committees. These committees are local collegiate spaces for water management that aim, among other things, to establish norms for the protection of the quality of territorial waters, seeking to guarantee access to water and water security. The participation of non-state actors in the elaboration of proposals within the hydrographic basin is important to strengthen water management plans in order to achieve the objectives of the National Water Resources Policy. But the effective participation through representatives in the committees can reveal limitations that point to failures in representation. In this study, we seek to problematize the exercise of representation in local collegiate spaces of water management. To this end, data from a nationwide survey were used, carried out between November 2017 and November 2019. Seeking to assess multiple facets of participation, for example, the actors involved, the legitimacy of representation and communication failures. As in the exercise of their functions, representatives must reflect the interests of the organization they represent and the segment of which they are part, we sought to know some aspects of the relationship between the representative and the organization he represents. The results show that the participatory implementation in the committees includes a range of actors that may not be adequately exercising the representation role for which they were entrusted, which is an indication of a governance failure that needs to be improved by the water management system.