Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Abbreviations and Acronyms
- Introduction: Governance in the Postcolony: Time for a rethink?
- PART I GOVERNANCE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
- PART II SECTORS AND LOCATIONS
- Chapter 8 Governance versus Government: As reflected in water management
- Chapter 9 Broken Corporate Governance: South Africa's municipal state-owned entities and agencies
- Chapter 10 Law and Governance: Has the South African judiciary overstepped its oversight mandate?
- Chapter 11 Factoring in the ‘Real World’: Governance of public higher education in South Africa
- Chapter 12 Decolonisation and Governance at South African Universities: Case study of the Green Leadership Schools
- Chapter 13 Low-hanging Fruit or Deep-seated Transformation? Quality of life and governance in Gauteng, South Africa
- Contributors
- Index
Chapter 8 - Governance versus Government: As reflected in water management
from PART II - SECTORS AND LOCATIONS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Abbreviations and Acronyms
- Introduction: Governance in the Postcolony: Time for a rethink?
- PART I GOVERNANCE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
- PART II SECTORS AND LOCATIONS
- Chapter 8 Governance versus Government: As reflected in water management
- Chapter 9 Broken Corporate Governance: South Africa's municipal state-owned entities and agencies
- Chapter 10 Law and Governance: Has the South African judiciary overstepped its oversight mandate?
- Chapter 11 Factoring in the ‘Real World’: Governance of public higher education in South Africa
- Chapter 12 Decolonisation and Governance at South African Universities: Case study of the Green Leadership Schools
- Chapter 13 Low-hanging Fruit or Deep-seated Transformation? Quality of life and governance in Gauteng, South Africa
- Contributors
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION: WATER, GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNANCE
Since water flows through all aspects of a society's life, and all human activities depend on it in one way or another, it is a useful medium through which to consider how collective decisions are made about issues of common interest, such as the governance of natural resource use. The overarching objective of the management of water has been defined succinctly as the achievement of water security: ‘the reliable availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks’ (Grey and Sadoff 2007).
The objective is easy to state but its realisation is more difficult. One critical question is: who is responsible for the achievement of water security? For some aspects of water, this is relatively easy to define – for instance, the supply of safe water for domestic purposes to a large town is usually the job of that town's local government. But responsibility for other functions is more difficult to pin down – for instance, who apportions water from a small river in a heavily populated rural area where many farmers want to take more water than the river can provide?
Governments, particularly in poorer developing countries, seldom have the means to administer natural resources at this level of detail. And while agreements may be reached between local people on water sharing, how can these be prevented from breaking down if there is a shortage? If a dam could store water to increase and assure the farmers’ supplies, who should authorise, build and pay for its construction?
Who gets priority if there is also a factory and a town that need supplies? Who controls water quality and decides how much waste may be dumped into rivers by industries and municipalities, and under what conditions? How is the extraction of underground water regulated to ensure that wells do not run dry? And who decides how much effort – and sacrifice – should be devoted to environmental protection, since this invariably means restraining the use of the resource?
To successfully undertake the wide range of activities necessary to achieve water security, complex information has to be collated, alternative solutions need to be developed and analysed, and many different interests have to be reconciled.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Governance and the PostcolonyViews from Africa, pp. 169 - 193Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2019