Doing things differently : stories about local water governance in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine

This book documents the experiences, accounts and stories of people in villages, governorate offices and ministries who have tried to shake traditional patterns and to do things differently during the four years of the EMPOWERS Project. Sharing responsibilities with the different users is vital in addressing water scarcity, unequal distribution, and pollution problems, so that there is joint identification of local water problems, shared decision making, concerted action and empowerment of users and decentralized agencies. Local water governance is about new policies, platforms, networks and institutions. Making it work is about people. When it works, it is about people challenging the traditional way of how things ought to be. These are people who do things differently; people with a bit of courage. Some of the stories in this book are success stories that describe how interacting with the EMPOWERS project and using its tools, resulted in better development in many of the villages. Some of the stories show that local tradition and stubborn patterns of dependency and favouritism can hamper development, no matter how well the participatory planning is done.