At the University of Twente, over the years a conceptual model has been developed that links the factors explaining the course and results of multi-stakeholder processes to the aspects and qualities of the governance context. On the basis of this conceptual model a “Governance Assessment Tool” has been developed that can be used to assess where the strong and weak points are in the governance context in order to enable and support collaborative and adaptive water management in practice.
In the first part of the paper we will explain our working definition of “governance”, the highlights of the approach and its predecessors and give examples of the results of its application in a number of cases including The Netherlands, several other European countries, Vietnam, Canada and Mexico. As water governance under complex and dynamic circumstances needs to involve collaborative and adaptive management a central issue is the degree to which “boundary spanning” in enabled between sectors and geographical and times scales.
In the second part of the paper we will discuss the way the Governance Assessment Tool needs to be specified for the specific issues of drought adaptation in NWE countries and the aspects of nature, agriculture and freshwater supply. In the Interreg IVb DROP project measures of drought adaptation are supported by a “governance team” from five institutes by assessing the governance conditions in each of the cases and for that purpose further develop the general governance assessment tool for specific use in these drought adaptation related cases.
Critical attention will be paid in this part of the paper to the issue of transferability of insights in “good governance” across countries and themes, as this is not a self-evident matter, and the robustness of the specified tool regarding this.
