AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	32. Water in Africa: policies, politics and practices. National and local appropriation of global management models and paradigms
Paper ID	436
Author(s)	Bolding, Alex
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	This paper discusses the origins, implementation and outcomes of three key shifts in water governance that have become part and parcel of the sanctioned discourse on integrated water resources management (IWRM) worldwide, as effected in the Pungwe river basin. Newly created governing institutions embody three profound shifts: (1) from state to market-driven regulation (introduction of water pricing); (2) from centrally administered to democratic user-based management institutions (catchment councils), and; (3) from administrative to resource-based management (river basin management). Whilst these changes aim at making water accessible to all, by managing it in a sustainable, democratic and (cost)-effective way, the outcomes of the reforms are contradictory. In Mozambique, centralised state management has become further entrenched, stakeholders have virtually no say and are unaware of their hydraulic interdependence (seen as a precondition for collective action), and the introduction of water pricing has led to a situation where the most powerful and wealthy stakeholders (e.g. private sugar estates) pay the least. In Zimbabwe, the recent economic melt-down and changes in state governance (from a technocratic, strong state to a neo-patrimonial, failed state) have actively undercut the neo-liberal and democratic elements underpinning the shifts. This paper looks at both ends of the policy-practice spectrum. Firstly, it assesses how IWRM approaches incorporating the three globaly endorsed shifts have been translated into new national water legislation, policies and institutional frameworks in Mozambique and Zimbabwe during the 1990s. Careful attention is paid to local drivers for reform and the role of multi- and bi-lateral funding organisations in articulating the reforms. Next it is shown how these shifts have been implemented in the Pungwe basin by assessing the emergence of Water Authorities (ARA-Centro & ZINWA) and stakeholder fora (Comité da Baçia and Catchment Councils). Finally the contradictory outcomes of the reforms are assessed by examining the water management practices of various stakeholders in more detail, particularly the cases of large scale commercial farmers from Zimbabwe (new water users) that have settled in central Mozambique; Mafambisse Sugar Estate in the lower reach of the basin (the biggest single water user); and some smallholder irrigation furrows on both sides of the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border in the upper reaches of the Pungwe. In conclusion it is observed that the contradictory outcomes of internationally endorsed shifts in water governance point at the need to appreciate locally available repertoires of governance, state histories and existing divergent cultures of governing. A glaring disparity exists between policy discourse and practice on the ground. Second, particularly in ‘unclosed’ river basins like the Pungwe, it is necessary to demythologise the water scarcity and environmental doom narratives that underpin the IWRM paradigm. The concern of ‘stakeholders’ is not so much on integrated management as on development of the basin and its hydraulic resources. Third, rather than enforcing the central tenets of IWRM, it is necessary to build effective and legitimate water management strategies on the strengths of locally available and emergent practices of water capture and management. The paper provides some building blocks for such an alternative WRM paradigm.

Is it time to throw the IWRM-baby out of the bathwater? A plea for a paradigm shift based on the case of the Pungwe river basin, shared between Mozambique and Zimbabwe.