CIVIL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL CAPITAL

Contextualization

Considering water as the center of interest of different economic strata, and the conflicting nature of its management and uses, the session sought to address the relationship between civil society, social capital and water. Given the social inequalities that cause unequal access to water, it was pointed out the prevalence of economic agents over social capital in Brazilian public policies. One of the main challenges encountered in democratic management actions in Bolivia and the Dominican Republic was overcoming social inequalities that intensified with the urbanization process, leading to the growth of a marginalized population concentrated around the Ozama-Isabela basin, for example. In the case of the Dominican Republic, an important democratic management strategy was to include indigenous groups in separating the country’s basins and sub-basins. As a relevant case, in an exercise of dividing regions by similarity groups according to five aspects (such as water and soil), the difference between the technicians’ view and the indigenous groups’ perception of their social organizations was highlighted. At the end of the year, instead of 25 sub-basins initially conceived by governmental, indigenous and technical organs, they obtained only 7 clusters, considering the main socio-productive levels of the Urus, which had positive results in their management. As a result, the lesson is that if one does not start from the perceptions of the project’s target people, the projects tend to fail and not be completed. Another case in the Dominican Republic was courses conducted with women to analyze how power relations reflected in the use of available natural resources, in this case the use of the river, which was the source of water for these women. We also sought to map all the waterways known to them, in order to understand the perception of the Urus about natural resources and, from this, to know where were the main problems they saw. With this, they gradually made dynamics and discussions related to the temporality of women’s lives. Thus, they were able to analyze not only the temporality of relations between women, and between men and women, but also of socio-productive relations with the space in which these relations occur, in an example of effective governance of the region.

Recommendations

The lack of democratic management of water brings a view that water should be treated as a public good by political institutions, by fostering participatory spaces that are not only consultative, but deliberative in character. It is therefore recommended that participation be deliberative, and that projects, such as the Dominican Republic case presented, serve as a reference for others.

Conclusions

In the end, it was concluded that if one does not start from the perceptions of the project’s target people, the projects are doomed to failure: they only go to a certain point and stop. Persistence and strengthening of local committees are essential for project evolution.