In 2000, the Global Water Partnership (GWP) as the main advocate of the concept of Integrated Water Resources
Management (IWRM), proposed a definition that is now the reference, despite the ambiguity that persists in its
interpretation. At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the State representatives committed themselves to
launch “plans for integrated water resources management and water efficiency by 2005”. Some states immediately
honoured this commitment by adopting new national water policies inspired by IWRM principles. Do these implementation
plans respond to all the challenges of the IWRM? Or have these states simply reorganized their water resource policies to
give an impression of conforming to the framework? In response to these questions, we present a history of IWRM and its
conflicting interpretations followed by a case study of reforms enacted in Burkina Faso, to highlight some problems which
are inherent to IWRM and how IWRM was transposed on a national scale.