Water Policy - Water Politics -- Water Policy - Water Politics -- Global Norms and National Policies -- Towards Implementation of the World Commission on Dams Recommendations -- How Global Norms for Large Dams Reach Decision-Makers -- Global Environmental Governance and Its Influence on National Water Policies -- Global Water Governance: Managing complexity on a Global Scale -- Critical Debates Revisited -- Strategic Virtual Water Trade - A critical Analysis of the Debate -- The Debate on "Water as a Human Right" and its Implications for Development Assistance -- Rethinking IWRM Under Cultural Considerations -- Politics of Water Supply and Sanitation -- Private Sector Participation in Water Supply and Sanitation -- Sector Reforms for Sustainable Financing of Water and Wastewater Services -- The Political Economy of Water and Sanitation Services in Colombia -- Power Plays in Irrigation Reforms -- Political Power Play in Bulgaria's Irrigation Sector Reform -- Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Institutional Change in Kyrgyz Water Governance -- Development Cooperation -- The World Bank's Water Sector Policy Reforms -- Challenges for German Development Cooperation in the Water Sector -- Addressing the Need for Water Service Delivery in Fragile States -- EU Water Initiative - A (non-) Innovative Form of Development Cooperation. This statement in the most recent Human Development Report articulates a conv- tion that has increasingly gained ground in the water community over recent years: the key challenge in the water sector is not a lack of water, knowledge, nancial - sourcesortechnology.Ingeneral,itisthepoliticalspherethatdetermineswhetheror not water problems are solved, whether or not people have access to drinking water, irrigation water and sanitation, whether our natural resource base is developed s- tainable or overexploited, and whether new challenges for the water sector - such as adaptation to climate change - will be tackled or not. Politics (the process of decision-making of groups of people, involving the authoritative allocation of e.g. resources), the actors, their interests and interactions determine whether progress is made or hindered. The outcome of water politics is then re ected in water po- cies, the substantive outcome of the political interplay in terms of regulations, action programs or spending priorities of the various public or private entities concerned.