4. Strategies and instruments: governance assumes the multi-instrumental character
of policy strategies for policy implementation.
5. Responsibilities and resources for implementation: governance assumes a
complex multi-resource basis for policy implementation.
This leads us to define governance in general, and drought governance more
specifically, as the combination of the relevant multiplicity of responsibilities and
resources, instrumental strategies, goals, actor networks and scales that forms a
context that, to some degree, restricts and, to some degree, enables actions and
interactions. In Chap. 3 we will explain further how on the basis of this conceptualization of governance an assessment method is developed and how this methods
works in practice.
1.3 A Short Overview on Existing Governance Assessment
Methods and How We Relate to Them
Governance, and more specifically drought governance, thus requires an encompassing method of assessment, one that is not too strictly focused on a single aspect
of the water domain. However, assessment methods for water governance are
scarce, and often lack integrality or scientific foundation. As van Rijswick et al.
(2014) state in their recent article on water governance assessment:
However, an increasing amount of integral assessment approaches appear, but these
approaches often lack scientific substantiation and grounding (OECD 2011, 2014). The
information and knowledge base on which they rely can be very weak and fragmented.
Integral and interdisciplinary assessment methods are scarce, partly for the reason that such
integral and interdisciplinary assessments are particularly complex to develop and
implement.
Van Rijswick et al. work on an attempt to create greater coherence between
perspectives on assessment and relevant parts of water governance assessment. This
results in a list of ten building blocks, varying from knowledge, values and
involvement to responsibilities, regulations and arrangements (2014: 739).
However, although that does create greater insight into the components of water
governance and how diverse water governance assessment is, it does not yet lead to
a clearly implementable method of water governance assessment.
This is the issue for most of what is out there on water governance assessment.
Drought governance assessment as such is a much underdeveloped field, which is
why we investigate primarily water governance as a more general field in this
section. The step towards a more integral approach is increasingly made, and the
relevance of water governance assessment is not widely disputed. But work that
takes a step further towards concrete assessment method building is still very
limited. Sometimes assessment methods take a step towards a more normative
approach. An example here is the OECD Principles on Water Governance (brochure OECD 2015b). These are principles to provide a framework to understand
6
N. Bressers et al.
of policy strategies for policy implementation.
5. Responsibilities and resources for implementation: governance assumes a
complex multi-resource basis for policy implementation.
This leads us to define governance in general, and drought governance more
specifically, as the combination of the relevant multiplicity of responsibilities and
resources, instrumental strategies, goals, actor networks and scales that forms a
context that, to some degree, restricts and, to some degree, enables actions and
interactions. In Chap. 3 we will explain further how on the basis of this conceptualization of governance an assessment method is developed and how this methods
works in practice.
1.3 A Short Overview on Existing Governance Assessment
Methods and How We Relate to Them
Governance, and more specifically drought governance, thus requires an encompassing method of assessment, one that is not too strictly focused on a single aspect
of the water domain. However, assessment methods for water governance are
scarce, and often lack integrality or scientific foundation. As van Rijswick et al.
(2014) state in their recent article on water governance assessment:
However, an increasing amount of integral assessment approaches appear, but these
approaches often lack scientific substantiation and grounding (OECD 2011, 2014). The
information and knowledge base on which they rely can be very weak and fragmented.
Integral and interdisciplinary assessment methods are scarce, partly for the reason that such
integral and interdisciplinary assessments are particularly complex to develop and
implement.
Van Rijswick et al. work on an attempt to create greater coherence between
perspectives on assessment and relevant parts of water governance assessment. This
results in a list of ten building blocks, varying from knowledge, values and
involvement to responsibilities, regulations and arrangements (2014: 739).
However, although that does create greater insight into the components of water
governance and how diverse water governance assessment is, it does not yet lead to
a clearly implementable method of water governance assessment.
This is the issue for most of what is out there on water governance assessment.
Drought governance assessment as such is a much underdeveloped field, which is
why we investigate primarily water governance as a more general field in this
section. The step towards a more integral approach is increasingly made, and the
relevance of water governance assessment is not widely disputed. But work that
takes a step further towards concrete assessment method building is still very
limited. Sometimes assessment methods take a step towards a more normative
approach. An example here is the OECD Principles on Water Governance (brochure OECD 2015b). These are principles to provide a framework to understand
6
N. Bressers et al.