Applying good governance practice in the implementation of integrated water resource management: Analysing the relationship

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) has become the most prominent approach in settling various types of water issues amongst the various countries in the world. However, its implementation is still doubted even though various policies and programmes have been introduced. Previous studies also claimed that Malaysia is inclined towards a slow implementation of IWRM as the country is plagued by poor governance which is recognised as one of the barriers to proper implementation. Unfortunately, these studies, they do not provide sufficient empirical evidence to establish a relationship between IWRM and good governance practice in Malaysia. This study examined the role of these variables and identified the significant relationship that potentially contributes to the effectiveness of the IWRM implementation. The primary data was obtained from seven states involved in eight IWRM Best Management Practices (BMP) projects, where 212 respondents were selected using Purposive Stratified Sampling. A chi-square test and descriptive analysis were adopted in analysing the collected data to determine the relationships. The outcome indicated that seven out of the 14 IWRM elements and 17 out of 39 good governance elements were appropriate and revealed a significant relationship that improved IWRM implementation, which can be used as a reference to support the National Water Resources Policy.