The Ethics of Groundwater Governance: Evaluating a Methodology in Philippi in Cape Town

Abstract

When South African policymakers compiled the National Water Act and started implementing Integrated Water Resources Management, they assumed that social cohesion and shared values existed in the divided communities that characterized the post-apartheid South Africa. Moreover, they naively anticipated that both governments and communities were able to engage effectively in transdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder platforms on water governance. Water governance is a normative concept that implies a shift from government being in control of water management to it being a shared responsibility between diverse stakeholders in a context. Value analysis can play a critical role in understanding the multitude of conflicts that arise among the different stakeholders in water governance. It can create platforms for meaningful engagement that could lead to the resolution of a conflict. This work evaluates the impact of an ethics methodology in South Africa, discussing how the value-driven process was able to achieve improved social cohesion within the divided community in the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA). It compares this methodology with others arguing that its persistent focus on values and process, rather than content and outcome makes it more useful than other forms of participatory action research to hydrogeologists wanting to involve ethics in contested water governance issues.