Local Users, Local Governments, and Municipalities

Local people should organize themselves into water users associations. If a law does not yet provide for this opportunity, local users should lobby local and national parliaments that such a stipulation is developed and integrated in improved water acts and regulations.
Employees of factories and businesses should promote the development of water strategies within their firms as this is the basis for sustainable business and job security. - Wherever regional or national level water management or infrastructure planning is taking place that might negatively impact local interests and delivery of ecosystem services, local people should try to raise their voices and communicate their concerns to relevant government bodies and “their” parliamentarians.
Municipalities are equally responsible in ensuring that various interest groups are brought together in terms of wise, responsible, and efficient water use. Additionally, they are primarily responsible in ensuring access to safe water is secured through their water utilities, particularly for the urban and rural poor (so-called bottom billion), by applying tariff systems which are cost-recovering and continue to secure access for the poor. Innovative concepts, like the program Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP)²¹, should be further promoted, in particular with regards to sanitation.