The status quo of research on South Africa’s water resource management institutions

R Meissner,S Nienaber,N Funke,C Ntombela

doi:10.4314/wsa.v39i5.17

Abstract

The South African water resource management institutional landscape has seen some dramatic changes since the new dispensation came into power in 1994. Not only have legislation and policies changed, but there has also been a significant increase in the number of non-state actors in the policy development process. Water resource governance has therefore become more complex and its regulatory component is being implemented by a number of legislative institutions: catchment management agencies, water user associations, irrigation boards, and international water management bodies. Policy development is influenced by a myriad of non-state actors, scientists included. A comprehensive literature review of research on water resource management institutions published between 1997 and 2011 shows that scientists are focusing predominantly on catchment management agencies and aspects regarding their institutionalisation and organisational functionality. There is much less of a focus on other entities, such as advisory committees, international water management bodies, irrigation boards, the water tribunal and water user associations. What the review has also revealed is that research on water resource management institutions has been conducted predominantly by scientists from the natural sciences. There is therefore an evident need for a research focus on water resource management institutions other than catchment management agencies. In addition, there should be a focus on informal aspects of water resource governance and new theoretical developments, also from disciplines other than the natural sciences, in the fields of water resource governance and politics.Keywords: Water resource management institutions, literature review, catchment management agencies,water user associations, legislation, irrigation boards, catchment forums, international water management bodies

Highlights

South Africa’s water institutional landscape has seen some dramatic changes since the new dispensation came into power in 1994
The institutional setting consists of legislative entities such as catchment management agencies (CMAs), international water management bodies (IWMBs), irrigation boards (IBs) and water user associations (WUAs)
These include advisory committees, catchment forums, IBs and the water tribunal (RSA, 1998)

Summary

Introduction

South Africa’s water institutional landscape has seen some dramatic changes since the new dispensation came into power in 1994. The Act, contrary to previous water legislation, makes provision for public participation in the water resource management process Another important element in the National Water Act, which is drawn from the Constitution of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996), is the subsidiarity principle. In addition to the water resource management institutions defined by the National Water Act, other institutional entities that deal with water resource management exist These include advisory committees (our literature search only picked up one publication in which advisory committees are mentioned, namely Wester et al, 2003), catchment forums, IBs and the water tribunal (our literature search did not pick up any literature that had been conducted on the water tribunal during the period under review) (RSA, 1998). The transformation of IBs and related entities into WUAs, and the accompanying decentralisation of water resource management are continuous processes and should be seen as a dynamic progression in the South African water resource management landscape

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