Abstract
AbstractMany countries in the world, including South Africa, are water-stressed with increasing pressure on their water resources due to population growth, climate change, and inadequate funding. Post-independence in 1994, many policies and programmes were introduced by the government with the aim of promoting water management. While these policies and strategies achieved much in terms of water provision to communities and households, they failed to establish a water-conscious country with sufficient knowledge and expertise in water management. In addition, these policies and programmes are outdated, compartmentalised, complex, and lack robust water governance with resilient stakeholder partnerships that advance the more explicit second phase of the National Development Plan (NDP) to achieve water security under the threat of climate change. Using data collection tools inspired by the traditional method of participatory research, this paper analyses the structural and systematic factors hindering the implementation of comprehensive policies to achieve water security in South Africa. There is, therefore, an urgent need for South Africa to establish an independent water regulator to ensure coordination between different government departments, including the National Treasury, to strengthen weak governance capacity and to make it independent to attract private equity into the sector and to recover fiscal deficits in the water sector.
Highlights
Water scarcity is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century (Abu-Zeid & Shiklomanov, 2003)
The fundamental issue driving this study is to examine the level of satisfaction among respondents on the current water policies and programmes designed to achieve water security in South Africa
The respondents were asked to indicate whether the current policies and programmes are appropriate to achieve water security for the country
Summary
Water scarcity is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century (Abu-Zeid & Shiklomanov, 2003). Many countries in the world are facing increased water shortages in the 2020s and beyond. They include parts of India, China, much of the Middle East, Mexico, the United States, Poland, Russia, and a clear majority of African countries (Falkenmark, 1990). Falkenmark (1990) and Abu-Zeid & Shiklomanov (2003) further disclosed that by 2025, 1.1 billion Africans, about 75% of countries on the continent including South Africa, are projected to be living in severe water stress countries with enormous economic, social, environmental, and political consequences
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