Water Resources Management in Ethiopia: Implications for the Nile ...

applying policies now from regions with high levels of water resource and economic development will allow SSA to anticipate future conditions and circumvent the problems of following a more organic policy evolution process. It can be equally asserted, however, that prematurely employing policies more suitable for projected future water resources conditions may impede economic growth and poverty alleviation—the overriding goals of most SSA countries. Concern for demand management and a focus on conservation, in particular, may have steered SSA's policies away from water resources development. As a result, while the direct environmental externalities associated with water development are certainly reduced, the region as a whole remains as food insecure and poor as ever, with the increased long-term pressure for environmental destruction that is associated with such conditions.

As described by Shah et al. (2005), industrialized Europe and North America underwent a 200-year process of water resources development and natural resources degradation that corresponded with their substantial increases in per capita income and food production. Only in the latter part of the 20th century did the importance of natural resources management and conservation begin to outweigh development and its environmental consequences. Most of SSA launched its water resources development efforts much later, largely in the latter half of the 20th century. However, the region has not been afforded the same time to achieve the income and security levels of more industrialized regions. Instead, SSA's period of water resources development was “telescoped” and an agenda of development was integrated with demand management and conservation within just a few decades.

The corollary is that the focus of SSA's water policies has increasingly diverged from addressing conditions in SSA to embodying global “best practices” in transboundary water management. While insights contained in these best practices should clearly be appreciated, the most appropriate approaches in SSA are likely those that are more closely aligned with local and regional conditions rather than the “state of the art” elsewhere. To be clear, however, this is not to imply that the policy guidance from developed countries is meant maliciously, nor is it to