The Politics of Water: A Southern African Example
Abstract
During the 1990s southern African countries led water policy developments through a 鈥榥ew regionalism鈥�, spurred by drought. However, they encountered difficulty in implementing new reforms. This report examines political contradictions in reform processes across regional, national and local levels, drawing on research in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique. It shows how implementing distant concepts involves complex local political negotiation. It questions how easily 鈥榞ood resource governance鈥� can be devolved within complex, changing socio-political environments. Shifting property rights regimes鈥攊ncluding donor-related macro-economic adjustment鈥攇enerated new political classes and state-society actors, involving new understandings and meanings of resources and ownership. Key issues arising are: local generatation and retention of revenues, links between local knowledge and decision making, 鈥榞rey areas鈥� of non-commercial use beyond domestic levels, and challenges and competition over formal and informal systems of authority. Access to natural resources has to be a starting point for policy-makers and planners not simply in sectoral institutions but in those that serve some form of 鈥榗ross-cutting鈥� role, for instance local district councils and municipalities.
Citation
Nicol, A.; Mtisi, S. The Politics of Water: A Southern African Example. Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK (2003) 34 pp. ISBN 1 85864 454 2 [Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa Research Paper 20]
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