According to the Dublin Water Principles, (1) water resources are to be firmly brought under the State’s function of clarifying and maintaining a system of property rights, and (2) through the principle of participatory management, the State asserts the relevance of meaningful decentralization at the lowest appropriate level. In other words, regulatory and compliance powers have, on the one hand, the responsibility to establish policies and regulations in relation to physical water resources, but on the other hand, also need to articulate how the people and institutions are in fact managing these natural resources.
Water, which might appear as a gift from nature, actually needs huge human investment in order to serve the varied and growing global demand on this resource. Creating the investment structures and securing the funding to meet water needs is a key enabling factor to achieving good water governance.
