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A Case for Integrated Water Resources

Management (IWRM) as an Inclusive

Approach to Water Governance in the

Souss Massa Region of Morocco

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Augaly S. Kiedi 11690208

augalyskiedi@gmail.com Supervisor: Joshua K. Maiyo Second Reader: Courtney Vegelin International Development Studies October 2018

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A Case for Integrated Water Resources

Management (IWRM) as an Inclusive

Approach to Water Governance in the

Souss Massa Region of Morocco

_

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Augaly S. Kiedi Msc Thesis

International Development Studies Graduate School of Social Sciences University of Amsterdam (UvA)

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Acknowledgments

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The process of completing this thesis was one filled with many obstacles, both personal and academic. However, it was equally filled with support from countless people. First and foremost, I owe infinite gratitude to my parents, who have always generously supported my education, especially my dad who was my biggest motivation. Second, I am sincerely grateful to my supervisor, Joshua K. Maiyo: Thank you for your patience with me and your guidance during this seemingly endless process. I am also very grateful to Courtney Vegelin (not only as the second evaluator of this thesis but also the director of the IDS program), to the Examination Board, and to the University of Amsterdam as a whole for willing to accommodate me in so many ways. Last but not least, I am grateful and still humbled by everyone who contributed in one way or another to my research and fieldwork experience in Morocco, namely: my host families, Dar Si Hmad, and the members of ABH-SM, AgroTech, Association d’Astir, Conseil Régional du Souss Massa, the Observatoire Régional de l'Environnement et du Développement Durable, ONEP, ORMVA-SM, and RAMSA who shared their time and knowledge with me. Thank you to everyone who helped and encouraged me throughout this process.

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Abstract

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

With increasing attention to climate change, the epistemic community has aimed to mainstream inclusive approaches to governance of the effects thereof. In terms of water, that approach is Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). However, existing literature on inclusive water governance and IWRM seldom address the relationship between the two concepts. There are limited studies particularly on how the concepts converge at the level of implementation. The objective of this study was to examine how IWRM is essentially an inclusive approach to water governance. I examined this in Morocco, being a country that has agreed to the propriety of inclusive governance and adopted the approach of IWRM to attain this propriety. I specifically conducted a case study of the country's implementation of IWRM in the Souss Massa Region. This is the breadbasket of Morocco where climate change has severely affected availability of water and the dynamics of managing access and distribution of the resource, making an inclusive approach to the governance of water very crucial. Data was collected through qualitative research methods, including observations, semi-structured interviews, and review of documents to answer the question: How is IWRM implemented as an inclusive approach to water governance in the Souss Massa Region? Results show, first, staggering conformity to a regionalization policy aimed at ensuring institutional effectiveness by integrating various stakeholders into decision-making processes. Second, results reveal a process of implementing IWRM that pays rather insufficient attention to its integration component, thereby negatively affecting stakeholders’ access to services for the production, supply, and distribution of water. Based on these findings, I concluded that IWRM does not contribute to maximum inclusive water governance where there is insufficient attention to the integration of stakeholders. Yet, the problem is not with the IWRM framework itself but with how it is implemented. In the case of Morocco, the implementation process was bound to its monarchic political structure.

Keywords: Implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), inclusive

water governance, Morocco, Souss Massa Region

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Contents

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Acknowledgements 3

Abstract 4

Table of Contents 5

Tables and Figures 7

Acronyms and Abbreviations 8

Glossary 9

Chapter 1: Introduction 11

1.1 Knowledge Gaps, Relevance, and Objective of Research 11

1.2 Formulation of Research Questions 13

1.3 Thesis Outline 13

Chapter 2: Background 15

Chapter 3: Theoretical and Conceptual Framework 19

3.1 The Theory of Governance 19

3.2 Conceptualization of Inclusive Water Governance and IWRM 26

Chapter 4: Methodology 32

4.1 Operationalization of Key Concepts 32

4.2 Research Design 34 4.2.1 Sites Selection 34 4.2.2 Sampling Criteria 36 4.3 Methods 37 4.3.1 Data Collection 37 4.3.2 Data Analysis 41

4.4 Reflection on Quality of Research 42

4.5 Reflection on Ethics of Research 46

4.6 Reflection on Ontology and Epistemology of Research 49

4.7 Risks and Limitations of Research 50

Chapter 5: Institutional Effectiveness in the Water Sector 52 of the Souss Massa Region

Chapter 6: Access to Services in the Souss Massa Region 62 Chapter 7: Discussion and Policy Recommendations 65

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Chapter 8: Conclusion 67

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Tables and Figures

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tables

Table 3.1 Qualities of a centralized versus a decentralized governance network 22

Table 4.1 Categories of stakeholders interviewed 39

Table 4.2 Key documents examined 41

Figures

Figure 3.1 Components of water governance 25

Figure 3.2 Components of IWRM 28

Figure 3.3 Different ways of looking at integration in terms of water management 29

Figure 3.4 Conceptualization of inclusive water governance and IWRM 30

Figure 4.1 Operationalization of inclusive water governance and IWRM 33

Figure 5.1 Stakeholders in the the Chtouka Seawater Desalination Project 54

Figure 5.2 Regionalized structure of water sector in Morocco: Souss Massa Region 56

Figure 6.1 Targeted communication between stakeholders 62

Figure 6.2 Process of accessing services in the Souss Massa Region 64

Figure 7.1 Policy recommendations 66

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ABH-SM Agence du Bassin Hydraulique du Souss Massa

AUEA Association d'Utilisateurs d'Eau Agricole

AUEP Association d'Utilisateurs d'Eau Potable

CESE Conseil Economique, Social et Environnemental

CCR Consultative Committee on Regionalization

CSIR Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

DSH Dar Si Hmad

DWS (South African) Department of Water and Sanitation

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IR International Relations

IWRM Integrated Water Resources Management

MEMEE Ministère de l'Energie, des Mines, de l'Eau et de l'Environnement

MENA Middle East and North Africa

NWR (South African) National Water Resource Strategy

OECD-DAC Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee

ONEE/P Office National de l'Electricité et de l'Eau Potable

ORMVA-SM Office Régional de Mise en Valeur Agricole du Souss Massa

PNE Plan Nationale de l'Eau

RAMSA Régie Autonome Multiservices d'Agadir

SDGs Sustainable Development Goals

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

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Glossary

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Accountability: Consciously making responsible and liable decisions

Decentralization: A process by which power and the resources and responsibility that come

with it are delegated from a higher, more centralized authority to a lower one*

Implementation: The set of actions and interactions involved in the execution of public policy,

which increasingly requires multiple actors interacting with one another regularly and often over an extended duration*

Inclusion: Extension of resources to people, places, and/or issues that have historically suffered

from patterns of prejudice*

Institutions: Networks of organizations that serve some kind of social purpose and exist over

time in a way that transcends the intentions and actions of certain individuals*

Integration: Systemic immersion of people and institutions and ideas and expertise within a

forum

Management: The planning, implementation and monitoring of functions in order to achieve

predefined results**

Participation: Active, meaningful engagement in a set context

Regionalization: When the process of decentralization aims to empower regional entities Stakeholders: Individual and institutional actors with often varying interests and concerns in a

particular matter

Transparency: An open line of communication through which information can be shared and

tracked among stakeholders

Water resources: Fresh waters that are potentially useful for potable, agricultural, and industrial

consumption and other benefits to human beings

Water scarcity: Physical or economic lack of water resources to fulfill demands thereof *Source: Mark Bevir, 2009

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Chapter 1: Introduction

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In 2011, the state government of Michigan took over the budget of the city of Flint following years of rampant poverty, and decided to redirect the city's reliance on external water supply to the internal channel of the Flint River (Chavez et al. 2017: 12). Based on samples taken, water from the Flint River required an anti-corrosion treatment which the state decided against (Chavez et al. 2017: 13-14). Consequently, this decision disenfranchised the city's residents who rely on public water and revealed a myriad of development issues, which I think should have raised an insistent uproar. According to Chavez et al. (2017: 1), the outbreak revealed extremely poor water governance attributed to failure of institutions to uphold their responsibilities of accountability and transparency. Also concerning was that the outbreak was happening in a country with economic capability to mobilize resources to address such problems.

Of course, the Flint outbreak was only one of many water-related problems that have occurred in the world, but this was the outbreak that ignited my curiosity and concern about water governance. It basically made me wonder how institutional effectiveness and access to services were accounted for in water governance. I wondered this especially about places where water was an even graver problem and governance more fragmentary than in the case of Flint. This had to be a valid concern with ongoing, serious threats of climate change on water resources. Realizing this helped to pinpoint my fundamental interest in the principles of governance (i.e. participation, transparency and accountability), which I think were neglected in the case of Flint. When the opportunity to conduct fieldwork emerged, I decided to study the topic of water governance and to do so in Morocco. Preliminary research on countries with concerning water problems frequently featured Morocco as a country where water governance was an active issue on the national agenda. As party to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Morocco has committed to aiming to “Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management” (UN General Assembly 2015: 11). Accordingly, Morocco has agreed to the propriety of inclusive governance and adopted the approach of IWRM to attain this propriety.

1.1

Knowledge Gaps, Relevance, and Objective of Research

Water is an essential element to human survival. Not simply because it is paramount to certain sustenance needs, like agriculture, but equally because of the integral role it plays in people's capacity to achieve their ambitions. Nonetheless, only 3 percent of the earth's water is freshwater, with 70 percent of that being inaccessible (Roudi-Fahimi et al. 2002: 1). The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region, where Morocco is situated and where 6.3 percent of the earth's population resides, contains only 1.4 percent of renewable freshwater (ibid.). With pressures of unbalanced population growth and demand for water resources, the Region stands as the most water-scarce (ibid.). This poses a significant threat not only for human survival but also for the sustainability of the earth; and for such a threat, governance of water rightfully warrants

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priority attention of the global community. Paired with increasing concern for climate change, the epistemic community has aimed to mainstream inclusive water governance approaches to tackle the effects thereof. Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has emerged as one of the most dominant approaches of inclusive water governance. However, existing literature on inclusive water governance and IWRM seldom address the reciprocal relationship between these concepts. I uncovered only one literature that explicitly acknowledged such a relationship, and that was the User’s Guide on Assessing Water Governance produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2013.

The concept of inclusive governance tends to be associated with international actions that require unified cooperation, such as UN resolutions and other international accords. These actions are those that influence politically motivated behaviors of states. In terms of water, inclusive water governance is considered an intensely political system that embraces cooperative action between a society and its government, with hopes to ensure effective implementation of socially acceptable allocation and regulation of water resources (Hall and Rogers 2003: 4). IWRM is associated with local actions that require decentralized cooperation in specific programs and projects. It is therefore considered a tool for ensuring equitable, economically grounded and environmentally sustainable management of water resources and provision of water services (ibid). By these associations, inclusive water governance is dealt with more broadly as an overarching system and IWRM as a technical and measurable tool for addressing specific water issues. Yet, there is little attention given to the prospect of inclusive water governance being a system in which IWRM is a tool. As remarked in the UNDP’s User’s Guide (ibid.):

The term ‘water governance’ is sometimes also used interchangeably with integrated water resources management (IWRM), a process that promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources to maximize economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems and the environment. Although important links can be found between them, they are not synonymous. According to the Global Water Partnership, governance should be seen as providing the context within which IWRM can be implemented.

In this study, I build onto the claim of the Global Water Partnership in examining the relationship between inclusive water governance and IWRM. I argue for consideration of the concepts in a continuum, whereby inclusive water governance facilitates the implementation of IWRM. This is not a way only to deflate the concepts, but also to progress current trends, namely the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), from idealistic abstraction to tangible development. Consider SDG 6, which calls for assurance of "availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all" (UN General Assembly 2015: 14). In order for this goal to be effectively achieved in accordance with Agenda 2030 (ibid.), more effort is required beyond the current status of various approaches to addressing water issues being tested to no avail. Scientists have concluded that the worsening effects of climate change have come too far to be reversed, and therefore the global society have long surpassed the time of trial and error. By

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engaging with concepts like inclusive water governance and IWRM as competing with one another, we spend more time verifying them as approaches and less time actually applying them to tangible development.

Many countries like Morocco already face significant challenges of scarcity, where much of their water resources have been committed for certain uses and new competing demands continue to grow (Jacobson et al. 2013: 3). The impact of climate change is expected to compound these water problems with increasing variability in water supplies and, at the same time, competition for water resources among a wider set of stakeholders is expected to increase (Jacobson et al. 2013: 3-4). This means conflicts among stakeholders will rise, with some being more powerful than others in lobbying for their interests (ibid.). In summary, study of governance is ever more important to help ensure equitable and environmentally sustainable practices within water sectors. This study subscribes to that aspiration in my attempt to connect the prevalent concepts of inclusive water governance and IWRM.

1.2. Formulation of Research Questions

The aim of this study was to answer the question: How is IWRM implemented as an inclusive approach to water governance in the Souss Massa Region of Morocco? I explored this question through two subsequent questions. First: What is the scope of inclusive water governance in Morocco? Considering my hypothesis that inclusive governance helps to facilitate the implementation of IWRM, the purpose of this sub-question was to show how inclusive governance was conceptualized at the national level. I hoped that knowing this about Morocco would help me better understand how IWRM was implemented in the Souss Massa Region. That was the objective of my second sub-question: How is IWRM implemented in the Souss Massa Region? The formulation of these questions reflects a grounded theory approach to qualitative research. This means the research question was no permanent fixture, changing altogether in light of categories that emerged from the data I collected (Willig 2008: 38). In fact, this final set of questions is a product of several revisions to the questions I initially proposed to research.

1.3

Thesis Outline

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the process and present results of the research I conducted on the implementation of IWRM as an inclusive approach to water governance in the Souss Massa Region. In chapter one, I introduce the 2014 crisis in Flint Michigan as my motivation to study the topic of water governance in Morocco and the knowledge gaps I found in existing literature on water governance. These gaps drew my attention to inclusive water governance and IWRM, shaping my research objective to examining the relationship between the two concepts. I also explain how the research questions were formulated and provide this outline of the thesis in chapter one. In Chapter two, I provide a background of the geography and water policies of Morocco and the politics and governance of water in the country. In chapter three, I explain the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of inclusive water governance and IWRM that I considered

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for this study. In chapter four, I present a detailed overview of the methodology I undertook to operationalize the key concepts, select the research sites, sample my unit of analysis, and collect and analyze data. I conclude the chapter with reflections on the quality, ethics, and ontology and epistemology of my research and by acknowledging the risks and limitations I incurred.

There are two empirical chapters in this thesis: In chapter five, I describe the effectiveness of institutions in the Souss Massa Region to show the conceptualization of inclusive governance in Morocco. In chapter six, I describe stakeholders’ access to services to show how IWRM is implemented in the Souss Massa Region. Together, the two chapters show how IWRM fits into the structure of inclusive governance and where there is a need for improvement in that relationship. I discuss this in chapter 7. I conclude the thesis with a discussion and interpretation of my findings in fulfilling the objective of the research and a list of policy recommendations for institutional stakeholders. In the conclusion, I provide a critical reflection on: the issues I raised about water governance, the claim I made about a relationship between inclusive water governance and IWRM, the extent to which the methodology and theoretical and conceptual frameworks I used contributed to the objective of the research, and whether I introduced an expanded way of dealing with the concepts of inclusive water governance and IWRM.

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Chapter 2: Background

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As established in the introduction above, water is an essential element to human survival and the governance of it should therefore be of high global priority. Accordingly, the study and application of the dominant concepts of inclusive water governance and IWRM is important. In studying the relationship between these concepts, my choice to conduct research in Morocco offered concrete forms of contextualization for understanding the issue and significance of water governance. Here, I elaborate on the characteristics of Morocco that provided such a foundation. These characteristics pertain to the country's geography and water policies and the politics and governance of water, which are traced to the country’s policy of advanced regionalization. The purpose of this chapter is aptly to provide a background on Morocco as an exemplar for not only studying water governance but specifically the concepts of inclusive water governance and IWRM.

Geography and Water Policies of Morocco

The Kingdom of Morocco is an environmentally and socially diverse country in North Africa. Located on the north-western coast of Africa, the orographic landscape of Morocco is characterized by sweeping plateaus and lush coastal plains (CIA: The World Factbook 2018). Morocco is the only African nation with both Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines, of which it claims 12 nm of territorial sea (ibid.). However, despite comprising 2250 sq. km. of surface water, Morocco is still susceptible to periodic droughts and suffers from environmental problems including: water supply contamination by raw sewage, siltation of reservoirs, and oil pollution of coastal waters (ibid.). The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) classifies Morocco as a “very vulnerable” nation considering the conditions it is expected to experience throughout the worsening course of climate change (Global Nexus 2017). These conditions include: increase in average temperatures by 1-1.5°, a 10-20 percent drop in precipitation, and saltwater pollution of coastal aquifers beneath cities as sea levels rise between 18 and 59 cm over the century (ibid.).

While these conditions naturally desiccate the country’s water supply, a significant aspect of this process is the country’s growing population. In the early 1990s, Morocco’s population of five million people was dispersed in rural settlements (ibid.). By 2050, the population is projected to reach 42 million people and to be increasingly urbanized along the coast, thereby competing for food, water and employment in a globalized economy (ibid.). In order to maintain a threshold of 4-5 percent growth, Morocco directs 9-15 percent of its investment budget toward climate change adaptation, which entails managing freshwater in more optimal ways that support various consumption needs (ibid.). For decades, Morocco has been committed to addressing these problems by constructing dams, efficient water irrigation systems and other major water infrastructure to support household, industrial and agricultural consumption needs (Afilal 2017). Among the achievements of Morocco’s commendable yet incomplete success are: a long-term

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planning policy introduced in the 1980s that established a monitoring system of water resource availability over a 20 to 30-year period; the adoption of Law 10-95, which called for participatory integration and decentralization of water resource management; and the development of technical and scientific research skills within the decentralized agencies (ibid.).

These policies have led to the development of 140 large dams with capacity exceeding 17.6 billion cubic meters, several thousand boreholes and wells to capture groundwater, and a modern irrigation system that covers nearly 1.5 million hectares (ibid.). Additionally, these efforts incorporate risk management systems for better protection of communities and properties from flooding and water use for hydropower generation (ibid.). However, especially with extreme climate patterns due to climate change, Morocco continues to face major challenges related to depletion of water resources and inadequate resources to supply the country with safe water. In 2015, Morocco adopted a new strategy for water policy with the creation of the Plan Nationale de

l'Eau (PNE) (ibid.). The PNE partitions the country’s water issues into three targets: 1) water

demand management and water use efficiency; 2) storage of surface water with developed infrastructure; and 3) water and natural environment conservation and climate change adaptation (ibid.). According to the World Bank, implementation of the PNE continues to be strengthened, for instance, by the adoption of Law 36-15 in August 2016, which pursues the objectives of Law 10-95 to ensure an integrated, decentralized, and participatory management of water resources (ibid.). This notion derives from a regionalization policy, which was key to the viability of Morocco in showcasing the relationship between inclusive water governance and IWRM. Understanding the policy requires a look at its attribution to the politics and governance of water in Morocco.

Politics and Governance of Water in Morocco

In the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring, a new constitution was devised to ensure the continuation of democracy in Morocco (Bergh 2016). A major aspect of the constitution is decentralization reform known as advanced regionalization (Bergh 2016: 9). The policy was instituted by the Consultative Committee on Regionalization (CCR), which was created by the current King Mohammed VI in 2010 as part of the decentralization process initiated in the mid-seventies (Collado and García 2015: 76). The policy is a third phase of the decentralization process (ibid.). The first phase, which Collado and García (ibid.) claim to have been politically useful for controlling peripheral dynamics by re-engaging local elite networks, was a regional model for addressing the country’s needs regarding development and growth. The second phase concerned the 1996 constitutional revision and 1997 regional law, which divided the country into sixteen regions (ibid.). According to Collado and García (ibid.), the regions still faced weak capacity for legislative autonomy and overall limited power. The authors attribute these initiatives as rather means of pacifying the public while the Monarch maintained power (ibid). Some studies on the democratization of Morocco suggest that the intention of the initiatives was simply to deconcentrate power from the monarch but not actually decentralize that power by, for instance,

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entrusting more regional legislative autonomy (Bergh 2016; Collado and Garcia 2015). This is a common criticism associated with the former king.

In contrast, the version of reform assumed by King Mohammed VI deliberately targets good governance as "key to democracy and development" (Collado and García 2015: 77). In fact, the King himself encouraged the participation of several social and political actors at the national and international level in generating a total of 124 written and oral proposals for the CCR to consider when devising the advanced regionalization Policy (ibid.). This is consistent with the purpose of such a policy to democratize the country, and democracy entails certain power dynamics within a society. The advanced status of the regionalization policy accounts for this in four aspects: 1) a strong commitment to the nation’s sacred and immutable values (the unity of the state, of the nation and of the territory); 2) the principle of solidarity; 3) a balanced distribution of resources between powers and local authorities, central government and the institutions concerned; and 4) the adoption of an extensive devolution within the framework of an efficient territorial governance system based on harmony and convergence (Collado and García 2015: 78). Minuscule as it may seem, this is an example of decentralizing power in the same way required to operate the functions of inclusive governance and integrated management of any kind.

Granted, change remains in slow progression in the reign of King Mohammed VI. For example, the CCR, a representative body of 22 members from the public sector and civil society (Oxford Business Group 2011: 17) lacks capacity to consult on the political power of the same regions it is tasked to help empower. Values and principles pertaining to sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political, legislative, and judicial unity of the nation are not challenged by the CCR (Collado and García 2015: 80). They remain subject to the discretion of the King who is the supreme representative of the nation (ibid.). Despite the aims of the advanced regionalization Policy to construct regions with an “essence of democracy”, any real political power is withheld from regions, deflating the policy to being about the promotion of integrated and sustainable development (ibid.). This is consistent with the focus of regional actions on environmental, social, and some economic issues, which can conceivably be depoliticized more than political issues. If this study were strictly about the advanced regionalization Policy, further scrutiny of this shortcoming of the CCR certainly would have been necessary. With more regard to the aspiration of regionalization, I focus on the manner in which the enactment of the policy has created an environment suitable for implementation of IWRM as an inclusive approach to water governance.

During the popular protests of the Arab Spring, concerns of most political actors involved in the mobilization was oriented towards issues of corruption and the deficit in democracy (Collado and García 2015: 76). The decentralization reform is claimed to have drifted in different paths in the national political realm (ibid.). However, in the water sector, the scarcity of water throughout the country inspires the reform to be carried on quite notably. First and foremost, the division of regions, while not specifically created for the management of water but for the general

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administrative decentralization, still helps to carry out the reform in the water sector. The rules established by the CCR divides the country into 12 regions on account of: efficiency, existing conditions, homogeneity, functionality, accessibility and proximity, proportionality, and balance (Collado and García 2015: 85). These criteria show potential to ensure integration and inclusion of stakeholders within the regions. In other words, there is potential for diverse representation within the regions, thereby contributing to the integration component of IWRM, which in turn may contribute to inclusive governance.

I engage with the advanced regionalization Policy as presented in the 2017 Program de

Développement Régional (PDR) for the Souss Massa Region and with the integration component

of IWRM as presented in the 2014 report by the Ministry of Energy, Water Mines and Environment and the World Bank regarding the adoption of IWRM in Morocco. The PDR provides a blueprint tracing the country's need for inclusive governance by way of the advanced regionalization Policy and consequent adoption of IWRM. The latter report envisages the structure and process of IWRM in terms of an upgrade from the sectoral management of water that prevailed over a long time. It describes the conceptualization of IWRM in Morocco as taking into account all uses of water within a regional space, ensuring the protection of the resource and involvement of all relevant parties in the management and preservation of interests pertaining to the resource. Together, the documents serve as essential tools for navigating the presence of inclusive governance and IWRM in Morocco in order to examine the claimed relationship between the two concepts.

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Chapter 3: Theoretical and Conceptual Framework

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Water governance is a topic extensively studied in the field of social sciences. Especially now considering the urgent effects of climate change on water, there are increasing academic and practical emphases on inclusive water governance. To understand the compound concept of inclusive water governance, it is important to first decipher the theory of the fundamental element in that concept, which is governance. Secondly, it is important to decipher the matter of inclusion in governance. Thereon the issue of water can be incorporated to the discourse. In this discourse, I incorporate the issue of water with the concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM), whereby I argue that IWRM is an inclusive approach to water governance. Here, I present the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of my research, drawing from critical interdisciplinary perspectives. The chapter begins with a broad theoretical discussion of governance from the perspectives of constructivism and positivism. Then it focuses more on the less ambiguous elements of inclusion and water. Lastly, I discusses the conceptualization of inclusive water governance and IWRM, establishing the case for how these two concepts are related.

3.1

The Theory of Governance

The topic of governance engenders a discourse generally undertaken by academics and policy-makers. Academics comprise of scholars, researchers and scientists within higher education and other knowledge-driven institutions. Policy-makers comprise of actors within government, semi-autonomous, and non-government institutions directly involved with the formulation and enactment of principles that constitute policies. Whereas theoretical work on governance is often produced by academics who tend to have indirect involvement with issues thereof, policy-makers deal with its application. Together, they recognize the complexity of governance: its global and multidimensional aspects. Governance is overall conceived as a form of collaboration in collective decision-making within a certain community (Beunen et al. 2015: 4). However, when it comes to the evolutionary phenomenon of governance, there are contrasting perspectives within each entity as there are shared ones between them. Some academics and policy-makers assume a constructivist perspective of governance while others assume a positivist perspective, both of which influence their definitions and debates around the concept. Relative to the distinction made by Henry Paul Bang in his book Governance as Social and Political Communication, constructivists basically have a descriptive perspective of governance and positivists have an analytical one (2003: 42).

Social constructivists, in particular, explain governance in terms of how human activity influences the creation, sustenance, contest, and transformation of meanings of the concept amid strong power dynamics (Bevir 2009: 192). They define governance with great emphasis on its contingent, discursive nature. For example: Knowledge-driven institutions like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) define governance as a system that

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enables stakeholders to interact among themselves and participate in public affairs in manners which ensure collective responsibility and efficiency (UNESCO 2017). In policy-making, governance is often defined as American foreign policy analyst Anne Marie Slaughter defines it, as: the formal and informal system of rules, roles and relationships that determine the social practices of states and non-state actors in international affairs (Haas 2002: 73). These definitions vary by intentions and beliefs, knowledge, assumptions, signs and languages, and discourses and ideologies behind them, which social constructivists often explore both synchronically and diachronically (Bevir 2009: 21).

Positivists push beyond constructivists' emphasis on the contingent, discursive meanings of governance and instead emphasize the significance of knowledge generation and agency in policy-making. Their definitions of governance tend to be consistent with that of R. A. W. Rhodes as self-organizing, inter-organizational networks (Bang 2003: 42). Rhodes identifies four characteristics of governance (ibid.): 1) That governance implies interdependence between institutions, which have shifting and opaque boundaries between public, private, and voluntary sectors. 2) That the interactions between these institutions are founded on their need to exchange resources and negotiate shared purposes. 3) That the inter-organizational networks rely on trust and are regulated by rules negotiated and agreed upon by the network participants. 4) That the networks have significant degree of autonomy from the state as they are self-organizing, although the state can indirectly and imperfectly steer them. Further explained by Bevir (2010: 53): Governance as a self-organizing system emerges from the activities and exchanges of stakeholders; wherein the role of government is not to create order but to ensure socio-political interactions, promote diverse mechanisms for managing conflicts, and provide necessary services to the different stakeholders. Hence, international, policy-driven institutions like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) define governance as the exercise of authority in the management of economic, political, and administrative affairs of the state (UNESCO 2017).

Bevir (2009: 97) proclaims the most influential definition of governance to be that by The World Bank “as the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised”. This definition construes the compound concept of governance into three components: 1) the account of stakeholders in various institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them; 2) the processes of selecting, monitoring and replacing governments; and 3) the capacity of the government to effectively form and implement sound policies (ibid.). Specifically in relation to water governance, the UNDP simplifies these components, respectively, into: the role of stakeholders, governance principles, and the overall performance of the water sector (Jacobson 2013: 8). The positivist perspective on governance essentially emphasize knowledge, power, and empowerment. According to Beunen (2015: 23), the Foucauldian conceptualization of governance claims that: "Power generates discursive processes, knowledge creates power, and knowledge is a product of power relations. This implies that knowledge can be derived from the effectiveness of

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arrangements across governance networks (i.e. participation); that there are power dynamics within the networks (i.e. transparency); and that the democratic implications of the networks can ensure empowerment of stakeholders (i.e. accountability) (Lewis 2011: 1224).

The Matter of Inclusion in Governance

Inclusion is an increasingly popular subject in social sciences, considering its altruistic component to broaden the types of stakeholders participating in policy formulation and give legitimacy to topics and expertise from diverse backgrounds (Hordijk and Baud 2006: 668). By this constructivist notion, inclusion overturns obstructive patterns to development and power relations (ibid.). This is sought to occur through a bottom-up movement of cultural adjustments in governance, as opposed to the positivist approach through a top-down movement of structural adjustments. However, whether looking at it from a constructivist or positivist perspective, both the contingent, discursive nature and self-organization of governance require inclusion of diverse elements: different stakeholders. Governance simply cannot be achieved or even sought in a unilateral system. The matter of inclusion in governance is what separates it from government and attributes to the decentered approach to governance that I take in this thesis. Needless to say, the comprehensive theory of governance entails far more than just inclusion or one form of inclusion, as there are many.

I accentuate inclusion because it is an unavoidable matter of good governance. Like governance, there are various ways of defining inclusion. Each governance network formulates its own definition and determines its own criteria for inclusion based on their respective circumstances (Beunen et. al. 2015: 62). What literature shows to be consistent across governance networks is their consensus on the colloquial definition of inclusion as a deliberate expansion of a set structure to account for certain elements that have traditionally been neglected in order to establish a more accurate representation of reality. This is an edict of reform, calling for decentralization of power from hierarchical to comprehensive, inclusive normalcy. Accordingly, inclusion is not stationary but rather varies on a spectrum from minimal to maximal inclusiveness.

Existing literature on the broader notion of inclusion tend to homogenize it with participation, yet inclusion implies far more than just participation. Participation is about increasing the input of stakeholders in decision-making processes, and inclusion is about creating and sustaining the community of stakeholders (Mack and Szulanski 2017: 386). Governance networks engage in participation when they include stakeholders in information-gathering activities, such as research, and engage in inclusion when they enable stakeholders to participate in the exchange of information, interactions, and collective decision-making processes (ibid.). Understanding the distinction between these two tactics of governance is crucial to also understanding the distinction between centralized and decentralized networks, which stands at the core of perhaps all research pertaining to the framework of governance. The following illustration lists some distinguishing qualities of each tactic proposed in a decentralist analysis of the effects

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of centralization on participation and inclusion in strategy-making by Daniel Z. Mack and Gabriel Szulanski (2017: 386).

Table 3.1 Qualities of a centralized Versus a decentralized governance network

The Issue of Water in Governance

The issue of water is generally addressed in terms of its security--whether as a natural resource or for human sustenance--hence mainstreaming the topic of water security. Water security refers to a complex network of global concerns, including: the acceptable level of water-related risks to the sustainability of humans and ecosystems; and the availability of water of sufficient quantity and quality to sustain human health, livelihoods, national security, and ecosystem services (Bakker 2013: 1). Over the past decades, water governance has been increasingly recognized by academics and policy-makers as a critical contributor to water security and the long-term sustainability of the resource (Bakker 2013: 1; Pahl-Wostl et al. 2013: 2). Simultaneously, there has been doubts about the effectiveness of certain governance processes vis-à-vis unsustainable water use, the implications of population growth for water use in food and energy production, and the increasing pressure imposed by climate change (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2013: 2). In the fourth edition of the World Water Development Report (WWDR4), UNESCO confirms the continuation of these alarming global trends as highlighting the need to improve coordination across sectors and policies by way of governance (ibid.).

Among these trends, climate change is of paramount concern to the global community. With its rapidly threatening effects on water, there is little dispute about the necessity of water governance. That is, at least within the community of those who acknowledge climate change to be real. Here, academics and policy-makers tend to prioritize different approaches to governance based on the two main effects of climate change on water: physical and economic water scarcity (Bakker 2013: 8). Physical water scarcity implies the physical unavailability of water, whereas economic water scarcity implies the inability to access water due to structural obstacles. For example, hydrologists, who prioritize the watershed1 approach, focus on physical scarcity;

1 A physical boundary of water

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meanwhile, political scientists, who tend to prioritize the nation-state2 approach, focus on economic scarcity (ibid.). Either way, both approaches attribute the implications of water issues to disparities in trajectories of governance, namely between policy development and implementation (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2013: 2). Accordingly, there are three important policy arenas in global water governance: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on access to water and sanitation, the controversy over large dams, and the links between climate change and water resources management (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2013: 2-3).

Unlike the general divide between academics as constructivists and policy-makers as positivists in terms of the theory of governance, there is a rather blurry divide of the perspectives on water governance. Proponents of the watershed approach would typically contribute to the positivist perspectives of policy-makers, as would those of the nation-state approach contribute to the constructivist perspective of academics. In contrast, proponents of the nation-state approach are increasingly concerned with the economic value of water. Hence, they suggest that water should be governed on account of national interests, benefits of national economy, and concerns of the population (Bakker 2013: 8). This reflects a major regulatory reform of water resources management in the European Union, called the Water Framework Directive, which proposed consideration of the economic costs and benefits of improving water ecology (Hanley et a. 2005: 183). In spirit of sustaining a vital resource, the Directive states that ‘‘water is not a commercial product like any other but, rather, a heritage which must be protected, defended and treated as such’’ (Moran and Dann 2008: 484). However, equally accepting that water supply is an economic activity with public and private costs and benefits, the Directive goes on to incorporate a number of economic principles for the management of water in the EU (ibid.).

The watershed approach, which has also been initiated in numerous countries, appeals for increased citizen participation (Bakker 2013: 8). This makes sense considering the multidirectional boundaries in watersheds and the inherent potential to affect more individuals than only a select few. However, despite this advantage, there is a history of skepticism towards a watershed approach to water governance based on significant challenges with its implementation. Some recent papers have identified these challenges to include the complex process of: defining boundaries; ensuring accountability of watershed-scale decisions and decision-making bodies; increasing public participation and empowerment of stakeholders in environmental decision-making; and controlling asymmetries between problem-sheds and policy-sheds (Cohen and Davidson 2011: 2-5). This social distribution of costs and benefits was incorporated into the traditionally hydrologic and enginerial perspective of the watershed approach in the 1950s, leading to a reframing and rebranding of what was then the dominant water management paradigm to what is also dominant today: integrated water resources management (IWRM) (ibid.).

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Although they are fundamentally different, nothing suggests that the nation-state and watershed approaches are mutually exclusive. They are both, more or less, concerned with water as a natural resource and for human sustenance. The divergence between the two approaches, especially now in the face of climate change, is mostly about competing interests in dealing with water scarcity; which, however, does not adequately represent the complexity of spatial and temporal variations in water issues across different communities. This is where a decentralist approach proves more advantageous in converging the nation-state and watershed approaches. The decentralist approach, which is undertaken as the water security approach in emerging literature, implies a rescaling of governance (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2013: 7). This, some academics and policy-makers have welcomed because such an initiative encourages interdisciplinary contributions to water governance (ibid.). In other words, it encourages inclusive water governance. Many policy-makers have also welcomed the multi-level aspect of inclusive water governance, given their insistent concern for "scalar failures", or situations where a lack of coordination between scales weakens water governance institutions and undermines efficient and effective water management (ibid.).

The theory of governance is very complex, to say the least. It takes on a wide range of different forms across different disciplines and strata. Within social sciences alone, even the language around governance is not simply disputable but also heavily inflated with a myriad of cognate elements. Some of these elements do appear in this thesis. However, with regards to the key concepts of inclusive water governance and IWRM, attention is mainly given to the elements of inclusion and water. These elements are not tendered as two adjacent dimensions of governance. Instead, the former is a matter of governance and the latter an issue that is subject to governance. As illustrated in Figure 3.1 below, these elements bind together the three underlying components of governance: stakeholders, governance principles, and performance of the water sector (Jacobson et al. 2013: 8).

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This illustration was inspired by Figure 2.1 (The Three Components of Governance Assessment) in the UNDP’s User’s Guide on page 8.

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3.2

Conceptualization of Inclusive Water Governance and IWRM

Inclusive Water Governance

Water is an indispensable resource in almost every aspect of human society. So naturally in the face of worsening water scarcity, there are serious conflicts between different stakeholders over access to the resource. An inclusive manner of governance is therefore obligatory to improving stakeholder engagement and ensuring effective resolution of conflicts. The ultimate success in the flow of these dynamics is sustainability, not only of water but also its governance process. It is from this understanding of the global water issue that the concept of inclusive water governance is derived and posited within social science discourses. The need for inclusive water governance has become especially potent considering the rampant progress of urbanization, industrialization, and modernization, where imbalances between demands and supplies of water resources have become more prominent and gradually threatening to regional socio-economic and environmental development (Wei 2018: 408). As explained by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in their study on stakeholder engagement for inclusive water governance (2015: 13): the range of water challenges requires coordinated effort among stakeholders--those who play a role in and those who are affected by actions and outcomes in the water sector. Taking place at various spatial scales, inclusive water governance has transpired in the form of decentralization at the regional and local levels of water decision-making and implementation (OECD 2015: 99).

Consider the conceptualization of water governance as: a system of political, organizational and administrative processes through which community interests are articulated, their input is incorporated, decisions are collectively made and implemented, and decision-makers are held accountable in developing and managing the supply and delivery of water (Bakker and Morinville 2013: 1). By this definition, inclusive water governance relies on the account of various interests and inputs from different decision-makers, which include both institutional and individual stakeholders, in order to unravel into reality. Findings from other case studies on water governance has provided supportive evidence for this “interdependence between power and social networks and institutional dynamics and scalar constructions” (Pahl-Wostl 2015: 107). Pahl-Wostl et al. (2012) found a strong correlation between polycentrism in water governance and the realization of good governance principles (i.e. participation, transparency and accountability). In essence, there is expectation of decentralization of power in inclusive governance and it is that which enables the integration component of IWRM.

Integrated Water Resources Management

IWRM is a leading approach in achieving inclusive water governance. In social sciences, IWRM is conceived as an experiment in governance and a reform of existing coordination and institutional efforts to address watershed resources (Lubell and Edelenbos 2013: 178). In fact, the concept of IRWM is the outcome of extensive social science discourses on collaborative policy,

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consensus, and conflict resolution (ibid.). As supposed by some academics, social science theories for analyzing IWRM are generally of two categories: They either present a pragmatic discussion of potential benefits of integration and collaboration and assessing a country on realizing these benefits; or they look at IWRM as a manifestation of adaptive governance (Lubell and Edelenbos 2013). The outputs of these researches are currently being used throughout the world to develop policies and infrastructures, and yet they do not provide actual guidelines for applying IWRM, especially in contributing to a comparative understanding of how the concept works in different contexts (Lubell and Edelenbos 2013: 178). Consequently, the often vague and abstract interpretations of IWRM generalizes any action partaken by water management stakeholders as being theoretically compliant (ibid.). This is problematic not only considering the variety and complexity of water management contexts but even more so because it curtails attention from critical aspects of water resources management (ibid.).

Historically, IWRM has been institutionalized in various ways over centuries (Rahaman and Varis 2005: 15). In Valencia, Spain, IWRM can be traced back to at least the tenth Century with the operation of multi-stakeholder, participatory water tribunals (ibid.). IWRM particularly gained momentum following the international conferences on water and environmental issues in Dublin and Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (Technical Advisory Committee 2000: 6). Despite its popularity, however, IWRM remains an amorphous concept in terms of having clear, universal guidelines by which it can be applied in different communities, across cultural, political, economic and social boundaries. In 2002, IWRM was defined by The Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Water Partnership at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) as a process through which the coordinated development and management of water, land, and related resources are promoted in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems (Rahaman and Varis 2005: 15). This appears to be the widely-implied definition of IWRM as consistently reflected in various literatures throughout the past decades, although different researchers apply this definition differently in one way or another.

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*Source: Chris White, Global Water Forum, 2013 **Source: UNESCO, 2017

One thing that is unavoidable and certain about IWRM is its integration component. Granted, even the word integration often varies in connotation and interpretation depending on who is defining it and in what context (Biswas 2009: 251). Figure 3.2 below lists some of the many

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ways of looking at integration in terms of water management. However, integration is generally recognized in literature on IWRM as an essential component of the concept. Consider the definition of IWRM by the Technical Advisory Committee as a process of coordination. It is the integration component of IWRM that dignifies the coordination of elements from the list above to be addressed in water resources management. Without the integration component, IWRM would not have the same compelling stature. The notion of integrating different people, ideas, and situations is what makes water resources management interesting and worthwhile. Whereas inclusion, as explained in the previous section, means bringing together certain elements that have traditionally been neglected in order to establish a more accurate representation of reality, integration means bringing the included elements to fruition. For example, an initial step would be to include as many women as men in a decision-making forum. The next, more technical, step would be to actually integrate the women into the forum, making sure that issues affecting women are not only accounted for, but done so with respect to the contributions of the women in the forum. By this token, the integration component of IWRM is the cursor that scales decision-making processes on the inclusion spectrum.

Figure 3.3 Different ways of looking at integration in terms of water management

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As an isolated concept, IWRM is indeed convoluted. However, stripped to its core, IWRM constitutes a path of short-term risk that leads to long-term security, presupposing, amongst other things, that water resources be managed in a holistic manner (van der Zaag 2005: 867). The integration component of IWRM entails reconciling basic human needs, ensuring access and equity within economic development and the imperative of ecological integrity, and respecting transboundary commitments (ibid.). Achieving this is an ambitious task that requires a participatory, transparent, and accountable decision-making process, which reflects an inclusive approach to water governance (ibid.). In fact, IWRM shares similar challenges faced with inclusive water governance, including: the institutional capacity to integrate various interests and inputs; the facilitation of decision processes; and the tendency of water issues to cause asymmetrical relationships between people, communities, and nations simply because water flows downhill (van der Zaag 2005: 867-869). Drawn from the evolutionary nature of governance, IWRM is not a dogmatic concept but very much alive and constantly grappled with (van der Zaag 2005: 869). Regarding IWRM as such a matter of water governance helps not only to clarify its conceptual ambiguity and resolve its systemic challenges, but also to contribute to the prominent need for inclusive water governance. Figure 3.2 below provides a scheme of this conceptualization. Figure 3.4 Conceptualization of inclusive water governance and IWRM

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The pursuit to realize the objective of this research undoubtedly takes a compound course. Yet, still the theory of governance and the conceptualization of its relevant concepts stretch far beyond even the broad scope of this study. The argument presented in this chapter is subjective to

my review of literature on the topics of governance, IWRM, and inclusion and water as studied

within social sciences. The chapter strictly serves to provide a description, summary, and critical assessment of these topics as necessary to establish the claim of IWRM being an inclusive approach to water governance. In doing so, it endorses an alternative interpretation of the popular concepts and demonstrates how this research contributes to the field of international development, specifically the water sector. The theoretical and conceptual frameworks considered in this study are formulated to: explain, predict, and understand the phenomenon of a relationship between inclusive water governance and IWRM; and, to some degree, challenge and extend existing knowledge on these concepts beyond the conventional constructivist and positivist perspectives.

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Chapter 4: Methodology

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4.1

Operationalization of Key Concepts

In examining whether IWRM is essentially an inclusive approach to water governance, I drew from the conceptualization of inclusive governance as a system rooted in the virtue of decentralization of power; which in the case of Morocco, was manifested in the form of advanced regionalization. To indicate this dimension of inclusive governance, I looked at the principles of governance: participation, transparency, and accountability of stakeholders to increase institutional effectiveness and access to services within the water sector of the Souss Massa Region. I applied the same principles as targets to assess the implementation of IWRM in the Region. With the integration component of IWRM being the virtue of the concept, I indicated this by the configuration of which stakeholders were integrated and how they were integrated into decision-making processes that affect institutional effectiveness and access to services in the Region. I used data highlighting the effectiveness of institutions to answer my first sub-question regarding the scope of inclusive water governance in Morocco. I used data from my analysis of the implementation of IWRM in the Souss Massa Region to answer the second sub-question pertaining to that implementation process. Figure 4.1 illustrates the complete scheme of this operationalization.

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4.2

Research Design

This research is designed as an exploratory, single case study around the water sector of the Souss Massa Region in Morocco. A single case study ensured undivided attention to the exploratory phase that circumscribed the process of investigating the relationship between inclusive water governance and IWRM within the context of the Souss Massa Region. This process entailed an ethnography of the political dimension of water governance, which focuses on the equal, democratic rights and opportunities of stakeholders to take part in various decision-making processes (Jacobson et al. 2013: 3). This dimension proved most relevant in examining the relationship between inclusive water governance and IWRM, as operationalized above.

4.2.1 Sites Selection

There are three factors that influenced the selection of Morocco as a viable location for this research. First, it was necessary to conduct the research somewhere with evident water issues and where significant efforts were being made to address the issues in an inclusive manner. Second, by token of my language skills in French, it was a personal wish of mine to spend time in a francophone country as a means to avoid the cost of hiring a translator. Third, it was nearly obligatory to travel to a country where my allowance of 370 euros would go a long way. With particular interest in the Middle

East and North Africa, the decision was made to go to Morocco. Ending up in the Souss Massa Region of Morocco, specifically in the village of Taourirt and the city of Agadir, was rather through a series of fortunate events that led to the revision of the initially proposed research questions.

Taourirt

The discovery of Taourirt, along with the Souss Massa Region where the village is located, was made through Workaway, an online platform that connects travelers to hosts. Travelers provide various help (i.e. household, landscaping, construction, childcare, etc.) to the hosts in

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exchange for room and board. My hosts--a middle aged Moroccan native and his Swiss wife--were spending the winter in Taourirt renovating the husband's childhood home. They solicited my help with some landscaping and painting work on the house in exchange for room and board, as well as extensive insight into the village, help with accessing participants, and translation service from Berber to French. These benefits are what drew me to Taourirt. Furthermore, considering the adoption of IWRM as an inclusive approach to water governance in Morocco and the economic significance of the Souss Massa

Region, this realization ignited my curiosity about the dynamics of inclusiveness in the Region's water governance. Now instead of looking at the Drâa-Tafilalet Region as proposed, the research location was reconsidered to the Souss Massa Region, with the village of Taourirt serving to provide insight into the Region's water sector from the perspective of a rural community.

Agadir

In order to gain insight into the water sector of the Souss Massa Region from the perspective of an urban community, the second half of the fieldwork was thus spent in Agadir. The city of Agadir was chosen specifically around the need for a "gatekeeper" to facilitate my access to institutional stakeholders. This need was met by Dar Si Hmad (DSH) - Center for Language Training and Research Support, a Moroccan NGO located in Agadir. Discovery of DSH was made during an online search for water-related institutions in the Souss Massa Region. The NGO provided me with an official letter of affiliation detailing the research intentions and plans as was required to be submitted to the administrative offices of each organization being pursued for information. The letter of affiliation legitimized my presence as a student researcher and allowed me to cross bureaucratic thresholds, giving me access particularly to the Office National de l'Eau Potable (ONEP), the Agence Régional d'Exécution des Projets (AREP) in the Conseil Régional du Souss Massa, the Office Régional de Mise en Valeur Agricole du Souss Massa (ORMVA-SM), and the Régie Autonome Multi-Services d'Agadir (RAMSA). Then, through recommendations by stakeholders at these organizations, further access was made into other relevant organizations, namely the Agence du Bassin Hydraulique de Souss Massa (ABH-SM), and the Observatoire Régional de l'Environnement et du Développement Durable. In the end, Agadir was more than a suitable site because DSH and this network of institutions was present there. Agadir was also the metropolis of the Souss Massa Region where urban aspects of water governance was most observable.

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