Regulatory framework of the Water Management Organization (WMO) in Bangladesh – A Critique of the Guideline for Participatory Water Management, 2001 (original) (raw)

2017, Regulatory framework of the Water Management Organization (WMO) in Bangladesh – A Critique of the Guideline for Participatory Water Management, 2001

Water Management Organization (WMO) is an elusive matter in Bangladesh’s water governance regime, for it was born without a legislation bringing it out to this world. An anomaly in that legal device such as any organization or an authority is created by the authority provided in a Legislation. But in this case, we hear the Government states that it will provide the legal framework needed for the WMOs, which are already in place. How and when it came into being? Who authorized its creation? Did the Parliament, the Constitutional body empowered to enact legislation and create such legal organizations and authorities, authorize it? There is no information available anywhere and the guideline itself speaks nothing regarding that. Most reputed practitioners of water management in Bangladesh may not ever have heard of the WMO; no legislation ever spoke of it . The complete body of this elusive legal being was first time disclosed in this equally confusing document, called the Guideline for Participatory Water Management. Called only a Guideline, not a legislation, neither a policy - but the authorities put on it the entire responsibility of “the Government’s commitment to ensure participatory water management in Bangladesh” within the “framework of the National Water Policy” . In this examination, we shall evaluate the legal status, objectives and legitimacy of this Guideline that created the WMOs in Bangladesh.

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