Teresa Liguori

Teresa Liguori from Italy gained Masters (LLM) in Water Governance and Conflict Resolution in 2010

Introduction

In 2010, I gained my Masters (LLM) in Water Governance and Conflict Resolution through my study at two Centres operating under the auspices of UNESCO: the University of Dundee’s Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science and the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft, the Netherlands. Both are highly specialist organizations offering in-depth, practical and globally famous education and training with respect to water - that vital resource for people everywhere.

As part of my study, I went to Guatemala to put into practice my learning through an internship with a local non -governmental organization, the Centro de Acción Legal Ambiental y Social de Guatemala (the Centre for Environmental and Social Legal Action), where I analyzed the draft water laws under legislative consideration. In Guatemala, water resources are suffering adverse changes in quality and availability, resulting in limitations on uses, due to human intervention on the hydrological cycle. The country lacked a water law and is far away to achieving an Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) system in practice. I choose this country for my internship since I was convinced my expertise could make a real difference to the people there:

• Direct, hands-on, experience in the field - ensuring that I can help their understanding of what is really going on and why.
• Knowledge on water law and water governance concepts that help to identify possible solutions to the main hydrological problems facing that nation.

Aims and Objectives of the internship:

• Understand legislative context, process and history.
• What are the mechanisms that impede the law to be approved.
• Political/ cultural context impacting on water law legislative process.
• Direct contact with people of all different levels of society helped in framing an opinion on the situation of the country and understand the local culture.
• Submission of my findings into the heart of the legislative process for Guatemala to help maximize practical impact of my internship

How my work went

In order to understand the environmental profile of Guatemala, with a particular focus on the status of water and the legal framework governing them, I carried out an analysis of this legal framework and the water law drafts. Thanks to the travels across the country during the activities of the NGO that hosted me, I had the occasion to get closer to the reality of the country and to talk personally with people belonging to different levels of the society. This helped me to understand better the actual situation of the country and to understand why there is still no water law governing the management of water resources. The experience has been really challenging. I lived and worked at direct contact with Guatemalan people and get used to a completely different culture has not been easy at all and I experienced what poverty really means. During the internship period I alternated research and analysis of the environmental legal framework of Guatemala related to water resources with the participation in many workshop and many travels around the country, following the organization that was hosting me, during its activities. The workshops and the travel have been very useful instruments for my analysis because they helped me to integrate it with the social and the political background of the country.

In order to be in the position of drawing a legal analysis on the water resources sector of Guatemala, I used all the knowledge I acquired during my master program: legal, social and scientific. Moreover, I reviewed many academic articles and books on the argument and I analyzed already existing national water law from other countries. This has been useful to increase my cognizance on water law and integrated water resources management and improved my academic background.

During the travel across the country, I had the occasion to meet the indigenous community of the Laguna Chikabal, a sacred lake to the indigenous group of Mam Mayan, situated in the department of Quetzaltenango. This community, as many others, in order to provide for the absence of a national management plan, created their own water resources management projects.

I also visited a small village named Pajales, where people live without water supply and do not even know what having a toilet means.

A document containing a legal analysis of the water law was the outcomes of my internship. It considered the general situation of the country and its weakness, thanks to the personal opinion I could develop during my experience. After translation in Spanish, my findings were presented to the state authorities with the aim of ensuring maximum impact of my work, complete with practical recommendations for legislative action.

Lessons learnt:

I had the opportunity to transfer into the reality all what I learned during the master program and to experiment how difficult it could be to apply the doctrine to the real life and to implement a legal enactment. I learned how important are the principles that govern the management of water resources and what happens when they are not applied and above all how essential is the presence of a water law even in a country that does not suffer from water stress.

Besides the improvement of my academic knowledge, the time I spent in Guatemala allowed me to know a different culture, and even if sometimes it has been difficult and challenging, it also enriched my cultural awareness. The fact that I could live in direct contact with Guatemalan people, allowed me to understand and to get used to their customs. Living this country not simply as a tourist, having met local people of different social classes, having exchanged opinions with them and in general having lived following their rules and their uses, even if not for a very long period, really helped to enlarge my personal vision of life.

Next steps

I will use my experience and my knowledge to help countries that like Guatemala are facing water problems. I would like to start my work from here in Guatemala, since I already know customs, uses, and the actual situation.