Do's and don'ts for successful intercultural water management
Issues to consider |
Do's |
Don'ts |
What works in one place doesn't necessarily work in another. | - Take cultural and local differences into account. | - Use one approach world-wide. |
Adopt local traditions and practices into sustainable solutions. | - Try to build on what has successfully worked in the past. | - Consider traditional knowledge and practices as ‘backward’. |
Think global, act local. | - Involve local people in the planning process. -Consider the broader context and consequences of new plans. - Ensure the well-being of the local community. |
- Forget that local issues need local input. - View your plan in isolation. - Forget to address the needs of local people. |
Ensure a match between people having to work together, and think beyond barriers. |
- Create a positive and co-operative working atmosphere. - Use cultural differences as an inspiration to create new sustainable solutions. |
- Create an atmosphere of conflict. - Let cultural differences become a source of conflict that hinder the process. |
Recognise cultural differences and local interests and factor them into your project. | - Find out what cultural factors (power distance, social relationships, knowledge level, etc.) determine the success of the project. | - Fail to ignore culturally-dependent enabling and counteracting forces. |
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Create local support for new plans. | - Involve local stakeholders in the decision-making process. - Visualise the situation to share conceptual understanding. - Value local people’s suggestions and use them if feasible. |
- Believe that public participation is the enemy of efficiency. - Think that you know best what is right for the people concerned. - Disregard suggestions of ‘lay people’. |
Understand and respect local cultural values and beliefs. | - Appreciate the fact that cultural values and beliefs may differ from your own set of values and beliefs. | - Impose your beliefs and values on others. - Assume you know what people think and want. |
Listen to concerns and respond appropriately. | - Address the needs and concerns of local people seriously. | - Ignore or overrule people’s needs and concerns |
Think ahead. | - Before starting a technical project make sure that the legal, financial and personnel responsibilities for long-term operation and maintenance are clear and covered. - Be pro-active. |
- Trust that once realised, local people will use and maintain the system themselves. - Wait for problems to surface. |
Use local experts. | - Involve local people in the work and create jobs for them. | - Try to do everything with your ‘own work force’. |
Regular, open and honest communication prevents delays caused by opposition and legal procedures. | - Say what you do and do what you say. - Make sure that your communication is line with the audience; use understandable language. |
- Make promises you can’t keep or fail to follow-up. - Fail to take language barriers into account. |
Evaluate the project on a regular basis. | - Learn from your mistakes. | - Forget to evaluate the process, thereby not allowing for mid-course corrections. |