Watershed and Aquifer Commissions
The Basin and Aquifer Commissions were established in the reform of Article No. 47 of the Constitution of the Republic in 2004, and the result of a plebiscite of popular initiative in October 2004. Uruguay was the first Latin American country to declare in its Constitution the access to drinking water and sanitation as fundamental rights and also enshrines the principle of water users? and civil society participation in the planning, management and monitoring of water. The new National Water Policy was formulated in Law No. 18.610 in 2009, which includes the Commissions. The Basin or Aquifer Commissions act as advisory, deliberative, and support bodies for the management of the Regional Water Resources Councils. The idea is to bring sustainability to the local management of the natural resources and to manage the potential conflicts from its use. They also actively collaborate in the formulation and implementation of the Water Resources Plan for the corresponding Watershed or Aquifer. They should also function as a link between the Executive Power and other relevant stakeholders and promote the Citizen Participation Law provided for in the Law. They are formed in a tripartite manner, with representatives of the Government, Users and Civil Society, in order to have a representative of local stakeholders.
Institutional design
Formalization: is the innovation embedded in the constitution or legislation, in an administrative act, or not formalized at all?
Frequency: how often does the innovation take place: only once, sporadically, or is it permanent or regular?
Mode of Selection of Participants: is the innovation open to all participants, access is restricted to some kind of condition, or both methods apply?
Type of participants: those who participate are individual citizens, civil society organizations, private stakeholders or a combination of those?
Decisiveness: does the innovation takes binding, non-binding or no decision at all?
Co-governance: is there involvement of the government in the process or not?
- Formalization
- embedded in the constitution/legislation
- Frequency
- sporadic
- Mode of selection of participants
- restricted
- Type of participants
- civil society private stakeholders
- Decisiveness
- democratic innovation yields a non-binding decision
- Co-Governance
- yes
Means
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Ends
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