Making Water Reform Happen

In 2011, Mexico launched an ambitious 2030 Water Agenda to achieve, within the next 20 years, clean water bodies, balanced supply and demand for water, universal coverage, and settlements safe from catastrophic floods. This strategic planning exercise is an example of clear political leadership to design a long-term vision for the sector. But making water reform happen is always challenging, especially in Mexico where past experience has shown the difficulty of translating policy objectives into action. Mexico does have a well-developed policy framework for water resource management, with a number of institutions and policy instruments in place. However, policy implementation is still uneven river basin councils are not fully operational twenty years after their creation the regulatory framework for drinking water and sanitation is scattered across multiple actors and harmful subsidies in other sectors (energy, agriculture) clearly work against water policy objectives. Efforts are particularly needed to increase water productivity and the cost-efficiency of water policies to address multi-level and river basin governance challenges (in particular bridging inconsistencies between federal and basin priorities) to sequence and prioritise reform needs and to support greater policy coherence with agriculture and energy.