A relação entre o perfil da participação dos membros e o desempenho dos comitês de bacias hidrográficas no Estado da Bahia.

Abstract

The Committees of Hydrographic Basins are collegial bodies and have their tripartite management, composed of members of the public power, civil society and users. These bodies gained notoriety after the promulgation of the National Policy on Water Resources, Law nº 9433/1997 - known as the "Water Law". This research aims to identify the relationship between the profile of the participation of the members and the performance of the Committees of Hydrographic Basins of the State of Bahia. As a theoretical reference, on the participation of the committees, authors such as Arnstein (2002), Bordenave (1994), Arraes (2000) and Teixeira (1997) were used in the research. Engle and Lemos (2009) used the socio-occupational, participation, experience, networks, decision-making, representation, knowledge and information profiles. The performance of the committees was assessed according to each member's perception. It is noted that the relationship between the performance of the committees and the membership profile of the members was positive, for example, the members who participate most in the meetings are those who say that the committees are efficient and effective. In reviewing the minutes of the meetings and the deliberations, it was noticed that the members act less energetically than they stated in the questionnaires. There is a vacancy of more than 30% of the total number of seats in the committees, and only three committees have a basin plan, an instrument for managing water resources that give the committee the possibility to know the whole basin and plan actions/projects. The relationship between the analysis of these documents and the interviews with the presidents and the questionnaires answered by 108 members of the committees showed how much the absence of participation influences the performance of these bodies. The reviewed committees showed low levels of resolution of the demands presented, coupled with the absence of water resources management tools, absence of members in meetings, and the difficulty of the State to involve all stakeholders. The limitations were due to the low involvement of members and presidents in participating in the survey, as well as the difficulty in accessing documents and information on committees. For future researches it is suggested to personally interview the presidents, in addition to other actors such as State Deputies, Public Ministries and INEMA.