SECURITY, ECOLOGY, COMMUNITY: CONTESTING THE ‘WATER WARS’ HYPOTHESIS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA L.A. Swatuk (University of Botswana) L. Thompson (University of the Western Cape) M. Hara (University of the Western Cape) P. Van Der Zaag (University of Zimbabwe) by The Centre for Southern African Studies, School of Government, University of the Western Cape to The Water Research Commission March 2003 Report No 1106/1/03 ISBN 1-77005-067-1 Disclaimer This report emanates from a project financed by the Water Research Commission (WRC) and is approved for publication. Approval does not signify that the contents necessarily reflect the views and policies of the WRC or the members of the project steering committee, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The project principals would like to acknowledge the support of the following groups and individuals for their help in the completion of this project: for their financial support, the Water Research Commission of South Africa and the Ford Foundation; for in-kind institutional support, IHE-Delft and the Universities of Botswana, Western Cape and Zimbabwe; for administrative support, Ms. Valmarie Haywood of the Centre for Southern African Studies; for intellectual guidance, all members of our Scientific Steering Committee; for in-field assistance, Africa University (Mutare), Catholic University (Beira), the Institute for Water and Sanitation Development (Harare), Mutare City Council, the Peer Educators Programme of Sakubva, members of all the families in Sakubva and Dangamvura who hosted student researchers, members of the Save, Odzi and Pungwe Catchment Councils, and all those who gave of their time, consented to be interviewed, and opened their homes to us. From us, we extend heartfelt thanks. Lastly, the project owes its inspiration to Professor Peter Vale, currently Nelson Mandela Chair of Politics and International Relations at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. To you all, we say, thank you and a luta continua. AVAILABILITY OF FULL REPORT The full report on CD-Rom may be obtained on request from the Water Research Commission. South African Water Research Commission Project K5/1106/01 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Executive Summary 3-18 2. Rationale 19-22 3. Aims and Objectives 23 4. Methodologies 24-30 5. Track 1 Results: Insights from Theory 31-40 6. Results: Background to the Empirical Case Studies: Water Resources Use in the SADC Region 41-46 7. Track 2 Results: Background to the Case Studies: The Study Area 47-56 8. Track 2 Results: Case Study 1: Institutional Reforms and Stakeholder Participation in Water Resources Management in Zimbabwe 57-86 9. Track 2 Results: Case Study 2: Water Security Through Augmented Supply: implications for poor households 87-99 10. Track 2 Results: Case Study 3: Urban Agriculture and Food Security 100-113 11. General Conclusions 114-120 Bibliography 121-137 Appendix 1: Details of Field Work including Recruitment of Students 138-146 Appendix 2: Outputs 147-150 Appendix 3: Reflections on the Project 151-154 South African Water Research Commission Project K5/1106/01 iii SECURITY, ECOLOGY, COMMUNITY: CONTESTING THE ‘WATER WARS’ HYPOTHESIS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA L.A. Swatuk, L. Thompson, M. Hara, P. Van Der Zaag EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 Introduction The needs of ecological and political systems often conflict. This is especially so in a region like Southern Africa where state-creation ignored ecosystems and historical patterns of human settlement in the establishment of political boundaries. In several cases, major river systems served as a convenient means to demarcate new states. In a number of other cases, the lines drawn on a map out of colonial political consideration split river basins between upstream and downstream countries. As a result, the SADC region has fifteen international river basins. Water resources management today is therefore often a matter of international politics. 2 Water Wars Ten years ago Ismael Serageldin of the World Bank stated ‘the wars of the next century will be over water’ (quoted in African Development Bank, 1994: 39). About the same time, Yeld (1993: 33) speculated that South Africa ‘will experience the equivalent of permanent drought somewhere between 2002 and 2040. Water rationing is likely to become a fact of life.’ A few years later, Conley (1996: 19) stated, ‘South Africa at present represents an example of a country which has reached a stage in its development where its scarce water resources will have to be allocated increasingly to the most worthwhile purposes only. It has become necessary for each water use to warrant the cost of providing the water.’ In 1997, Pallett and others, using a simple formula devised by Falkenmark (1986), and based largely on the relationship between increasing population growth and finite amounts of blue water, presented a graph illustrating how ‘water stress’ would grow to ‘absolute water scarcity’ in most of the SADC region. Policymakers in the region, taking their cues from international scholarship (Homer- Dixon, 1991, 1994) and popular opinion (Kaplan, 1994), framed water resources management within a discourse of state security and inter-state vulnerability. Hence, sovereign states acting independently to secure water supplies presented the possibility for increased conflict over water resources in the future (Ohlsson, 1995; SIDA, 1997). Moreover, it was hypothesised that global climate change, population increase, and limited renewable and non-renewable resources, constituted a volatile brew where inter- and intra-state conflict – i.e. ‘water wars’ – could become manifest in the near future (Solomon, 1996; Solomon and Turton, 2000; Turton and Warner, 2001). South African Water Research Commission Project K5/1106/01 1 Our project was conceived as a direct challenge to these assumptions. Indeed, a major goal of the theoretical component of our project was to try and change the language being used to talk about water resources management: away from water wars and acute conflict probability toward water for peace and environmental peacemaking. Over the last five years, one can detect a slight shift in the discourse away from the former toward the latter, both in the region (Swatuk, 2002; Turton, Ashton and Cloete, 2003; Nakayama, 2003) and at global level (Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Asmal, 2001; Wolf, Stahl and Macomber, 2003). New Theoretical Frameworks Ultimately, what we argue for are new ways of thinking about water resources – first and foremost as a tool for peace and a platform upon which to build wider national and regional cooperation. Without doubt, the theoretical framework and the language used to articulate it matter a great deal (Allan, 2003b). This report presents the findings from three case studies – institutional reform, urban water supply, food security – and locates them within the emerging discourse of river basin security. River basin security is, in our estimation, informed by the related discourses of integrated water resources management (IWRM) and integrated river basin management (IRBM). A working definition of IWRM is, ‘a process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems’ (GWP, 1998). River basin security combines IWRM with the goals of human security, as articulated by the UNDP (1994). Without going into much detail, let it suffice to say that ‘human security’ has two main aspects. ‘It means, first, safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease, and repression. And second, it means protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life – whether in homes, in jobs or in communities’ (UNDP in Conca and Dabelko, 1998: 300; see, also, Thomas, 1999: 3-8). The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI, 2003: 6), articulates the overall goal of ‘drainage basin security’ as follows: Water’s many parallel functions in both the life support system and in human society, combined with close linkages between water, food, economic and environmental security, necessitates that a water-related policy is developed around the idea of drainage basin security. Such a policy is imperative to assure security for all water-dependent activities in a river basin and for the ecosystems providing essential ecological goods and services. A policy would aid reconciliation of conflicting interests, development of methods that focus on basin-wide hydrosolidarity, and elaboration of effective and realistic trade offs between competing water-related interests. Since water is a mobile link in the mixed mosaic of water uses, land use and ecosystems, integrated watger resources management offers a roadmap toward compatibility. It is hoped that the findings of this project contribute to both the form and spirit of this goal. South African Water Research Commission Project K5/1106/01 2 3 Rationale The rationale for the project derived from the cognitive dissonance shared by the research team between the near global claims over ‘water wars’ and environmentally- induced ‘coming anarchies’ and the evidence on the ground – the ground, in our case, being Southern Africa. Clearly, environmental problems in Southern Africa are legion, as are problems with water resources management. Most of these, however, are the result of a global history of development and underdevelopment – a global history of which,