Factsheet #21
National strategies and programmes to coordinate water and other policy areas
#21: National strategies and programmes to coordinate water and other policy areas
Description
National Strategies take efforts to coordinate water and sectoral policies that are carried out through strategies and programs at the ministerial level. The ministries involved can vary.
Function
Strategies can be designed and developed. They can be developed with a specific focus e.g. water scarcity or green infrastructure, and with a specific group of institutions. They can also represent a vision which should be incorporated within different sectoral policies.
Example: The national Plan for Arsenic Mitigation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh suffers from groundwater contamination by arsenic, a problem that was firstly identified in the 1980’s. During the 1990’s and in 2004, a large plan for scale testing was founded under the title of National policy for Arsenic Mitigation. The program aims at lowering the standard of arsenic concentration to 10üg/L and, to this end, it carries the screening and monitoring of all tube wells, in order to detect and identify those contaminated by arsenic pollution. Arsenic laden sludge is then disposed and possible new groundwater supply sources are searched and tested. In order to mitigate the problem, awareness campaign are conducted to inform population and piped water supply is promoted as an alternative to tube wells in those area that are identified as polluted.
Source
OECD (2012). Water Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean. OECD Studies on water. (p. 76ff) http://www.oecd.org/gov/water-governance-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean-9789264174542-en.htm Retrieved on 22 September 2020.