Report on social issues in water management in the Mediterranean Countries

The involvement of local people on the management of scarce resources is a correct approach to try to solve some of the difficulties of decision-making processes. The participation of local stakeholders in decision-making processes has to do with giving them the power to mobilise their own capacities and therefore turning themselves in active actors instead of passive subjects. Of course this type of
co-management requires power sharing between government agencies and citizens with a stake in the common pool of resources and territory. It emphasizes a bottom-up rather than top-down process of participation and implies user groups playing an active role in decision-making. Furthermore, it REPORT ON SOCIAL ISSUES IN WATER MANAGEMENT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES 6 requires the understanding of the functioning of local networks of stakeholders. In fact, in the decisionmaking process, they operate as an essential tool in terms of transmission of normative systems, which regulate the decision and allow for identification of actual problems and potentialities, evaluation of the validity strengthen of proposals for intervention, and also understanding interactions and conflicts among the various social actors, whether individual or collective.