silo approaches in water policy result in incoherence between subnational policy needs and national policy initiatives and reduce the possibility of success for implementation of crosssectoral policy at the subnational level if individual ministries or public agencies operate independently rather than undertaking crosssectoral initiatives the opportunity for whole government approaches is minimised at the same time possibilities for maximising efficiency and effectiveness in crosssectoral public services may be lost and subnational development adversely impacted