Participação social e políticas públicas de gestão das águas: olhares sobre as experiências do Brasil, Portugal e França

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

Nowadays social participation is a key issue to strength democracy and citizenship. It is devoted as a constitutional right in Brazil and it is used as an important tool to optimize given actions, programmes and governmental projects since the decentralization in 1990. The policy culture, the centralisation and the dominance of certain groups in decision-making can be considered as important constrains to institutions that try to lead participatory projects. Furthermore, there is no common ground for using participation methods within different hierarchical levels of public administration. This kind of participation has been driven into a change on the identity, mobilization and in action processes within non governmental society. It is necessary to build up new skills to engage the public sector, mostly in the cases where social control of public policies has significant social costs. NGOs are focused on environmental conservation. They also take care of participatory opportunities that are created by government. In the case of water management they assume concrete responsibilities on decision-making. The National Policy of Water (Law n 9.433/97) in Brazil, has designated Basin Board as deliberative spaces for participation. This participatory model followed the French experience of water management, after the water framework from 1964. In Portugal there is any deliberative participation, even though the Law 45/1994 has designated the Basin Board, with the involvement of government, stakeholders and NGOS. In the three countries: Brazil, Portugal and France, despite the historical specificities, administrative and cultural policies, the participation on water management shows up many different conflicts, since they implie the participation of different actors with different negotiation abilities. These conflicts reveal also the lack of a feasible methodological participatory framework, which environmental NGOs intend to develop in accordance with new governance and action concepts in order to influence decision-making. The present thesis aims at analysing the participatory processes trough which environmental NGOs are engaged with in the spaces created by government for water management. The consolidated experience in France and the centralization in Portugal are the most important aspects to analyse the Brazilian system, which law has been recently celebrated ten years of application. The methodology was based both in European and North American social movements analysis, with interviews and field work, as well as the study of environmental NGOs. In what concerns water management, NGOs have been faced a transitional stage; from the fight against environmental destruction towards a collaborative and a specialised profile, dominated by the government interests. We concluded that, despite the institutional changes and the ways of motivating action and its inherent strategies, the participatory forums created by government are not efficient enough to influence decision-making in an effective way, once the conditions for negotiating are not the same among different stakeholders. It is necessary to develop a methodological framework that allows participation going further on water management process.

ASSUNTO(S)

participação social políticas públicas ecologia public policies gestão das águas sociedade civil non-governmental society water management social participation

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