SDG 6.5.1. Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)

Indicator 6.5.1. Degree of integrated water resources management (IWRM) implementation

As noted in the book (Chapter 4), the principles of participatory, integrated, sustainable management that underlie IWRM are vitally important, but the bureaucracy and jargon that have sprung up around the phrase have not always helped matters. This pattern is reflected in this attempt to quantify IWRM implementation at the global scale. The UN quantifies this indicator on a scale of 0-100, based on each country’s response to a detailed survey with 33 questions organized into four sections: 

• Enabling environment: Are there national and sub-national water policies, laws, and plans that are based on IWRM?
• Institutions and participation: At the national and sub-national levels, how strong are water management agency capacities? How well coordinated are the different agencies? Are there mechanisms for participation of the public and the business community? Are there gender-specific objectives? Is there effort to increase the capacity of different stakeholder groups?
• Management instruments: At the national and sub-national levels, how strong are programs for water monitoring, pollution control, aquatic ecosystem management, disaster management, and water-use management?
• Financing: At the national and sub-national levels, is there adequate financing for water infrastructure and IWRM?

The first round of implementation of this indicator, in 2017, produced country scores ranging from 10 to 100, with an average of 49, while the second round, in 2020, had an average of 54, and the third round, in 2023, had an average of 57. Countries at higher levels of development tended to have higher scores, and scores were higher for national-level indicators than sub-national. Of the four areas, financing had the lowest scores.

One may well question the usefulness of this data-collection exercise, especially given its self-reported nature and the requirement to distill complex policy and management issues into scores on an IWRM scale. Still, these are important questions for countries to think about, and the exercise may help nudge them towards more integrated, open, and collaborative management, especially since many countries held stakeholder workshops as part of the process of responding to the questionnaire.