Guidelines for local-level integrated water resource management: based on experiences from the SADC IWRM demonstration projects in Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zambia

Water resource management / Guidelines / Multiple use / Participatory management / Community involvement / Malawi / Mozambique / Namibia / Swaziland / Zambia

Capacity Building for Lavumisa Irrigation Development Project: process documentation

Water resource management / Multiple use / Project planning / Project management / Stakeholders / Agricultural cooperatives / Participatory management / Sugarcane / Irrigated farming / Water supply / Drinking water / Sanitation / Swaziland / Maplotini / Lavumisa Irrigation Development Project

Applying the Gini Coefficient to measure inequality of water use in the Olifants River water management area, South Africa

River basin management / Water stress / Water use / Indicators / Households / Rural areas / Irrigation programs / South Africa / Olifants River

Improved livelihoods in lower Limpopo: process documentation

Water resource management / Project planning / Project management / Participatory management / Community involvement / Irrigation schemes / Pumps / Dams / Canals / Mozambique / Lower Limpopo River Basin / Ndonga

IWRM and Rural Livelihood Project in Dzimphutsi: process documentation

Water resource management / Multiple use / Project planning / Project management / Participatory management / Community involvement / Dams / Irrigation schemes / Irrigated farming / Fish ponds / Livestock / Domestic water / Villages / Water scarcity / Institution building / Water users / Impact assessment / Malawi / Dzimphutsi Village / Mtendere Irrigation Scheme / Nkudzi River

Irrigation, gender and poverty: overview of issues and options

Irrigated farmingLaborPovertyFarming systemsWomenFarmersIncomeHouseholdsGender

Managing the business: potential and pitfalls of water rights and water tariffs in allocating and managing water in water stressed basins: the case of Rufiji Basin in Tanzania

River basinsWater stressWater resource managementWater rightsWater ratesWater allocation

Redressing inequities of the past from a historical perspective: The case of the Olifants basin, South Africa

This paper analyses the continuities and changes in water management in the Olifants basin after the first decade of implementation of the National Water Act (1998). By taking a historical perspective of the basin development trajectory, the paper shows how the White minority rulers, who exerted power until 1994, systematically denied historically disadvantaged individuals (HDIs) the right to become significant water users, let alone ‘economically viable’ water users. In contrast, White water users undertook major water resource development, which, by the 1970s resulted in the emergence of a ‘White water economy’. Under the new dispensation (post-1994), the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) took a two-pronged approach in the Olifants basin and elsewhere for redressing the inequities of the past. On the one hand, from the central top down, it opened up the ‘White water economy’ into a water economy serving especially ‘economically viable water users’, who rapidly ceased to be White only. As reflected in a range of new measures taken in the Olifants basin, in this new water economy DWAF better targets bulk domestic supplies to HDIs, has more public participation, and is strengthening its regulatory role in terms of cost-recovery, environmental issues, and pollution prevention. On the other hand DWAF seeks to fill the enormous backlog in water services delivery to HDIs, not only for domestic water uses, but increasingly also for productive uses. The major challenge of bottom-up coordinated service delivery for multiple uses through the newly established Provincial and Local Governments and the transforming line agencies is addressed under the recently launched Water for Growth and Development Initiative.Keywords: water policy, water law, history, basin management, livelihoods, poverty, gender, Olifants basin, South Afric

African Water Laws: Plural Legislative Frameworks For Rural Water Management in Africa: an international workshop, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26-28 January 2005

Water law / Water management / Water policy / Poverty / River basins / Irrigation systems / Institutions / Wetlands

Water rights in informal economies in the Limpopo and Volta basins

Most African countries underwent water legislation reform since the 1990s, through which existing plural legal systems were changed into nation-wide permit systems, in which the state acts as custodian of the nation’s water resources. Although globally heralded as the best way to manage water resources within the broader context of Integrated Water Resource Management, this project examines the problematic implications of the new laws for the majority of the rural and peri-urban poor. Since time immemorial, their water access has been largely governed by self-supply and informal arrangements that have allowed them to survive in often harsh ecological conditions. Water law reform basically dispossesses them from their current and future claims to water, unless they adopt an administrative water rights system that also historically has favored administration-proficient foreign investments. As the new laws have hardly been implemented as yet for various reasons that are further explored in this research, this research provides a timely analysis of the processes at stake and identifies alternative legal tools that recognizes informal water arrangements thereby protecting and encouraging small-scale water users to expand their water use. The generic findings from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique, and South Africa have generic validity throughout Sub-Saharan Africa