Your search found 9 records
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048255)
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: IWMI Record No: H048956)
(639 KB)
In recent decades, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have pursued national water permit systems, derived from the colonial era and reinforced by “global best practice.” These systems have proved logistically impossible to manage and have worsened inequality in water access. A new study conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and Pegasys Institute, with support from the UK government, traces the origins of these systems, and describes their implementation and consequences for rural smallholders in five countries – Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The authors of this report propose a hybrid water use rights system to decolonize Africa’s water law, lighten the administrative burden on the state and make legal access to water more equitable. This would strengthen smallholder irrigation, which is vital for boosting Africa’s food production and making it more resilient in the face of worsening drought.
3 van Koppen, Barbara; Schreiner, B. 2019. A hybrid approach to statutory water law to support smallholder farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Water Alternatives, 12(1): 146-155.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049088)
(566 KB)
Millions of small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa who are driving farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) have been turned into criminal offenders or, at least, categorically marginalised under widespread water permit systems. Under these systems, small-scale water users are obliged to apply for a permit, but very few have done so, largely because states lack the administrative capacity to inform such large numbers of people scattered across widespread rural areas with this obligation, to process large numbers of applications and enforce conditions tied to permits. Those who use water below a usually very low threshold, are exempted from this obligation, but small-scale farmers are generally above this category. This viewpoint, based on research and policy dialogues in a range of African countries, elaborates an alternative that addresses these injustices: a hybrid approach to water use authorisation. The proposed hybrid approach provides a suite of tools to legalise the water use of smallholder farmers and to overcome the colonial legacy of the side-lining of customary water law. These tools which can be combined and adjusted to suit specific contexts include: permits, targeted at, and enforced for, the relatively few high-impact users; collective permits; non-permit tools, in particular, first, general authorisations with equal or priority legal standing relative to permits and, second, the recognition of customary water law; and prioritisation.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049411)
(2.05 MB)
Following the National League for Democracy’s landslide victory in the 2015 national election, Myanmar embarked on a series of legal and political transitions. This paper highlights parallel processes alongside such transitions. Linking land governance with the ongoing peace processes, and taking Karen state as a case study, it brings to light how both processes are in fact closely interlinked. Building on legal pluralism research, we argue that in the context of ethnic states, farmers’ strategies to strengthen their land rights resemble the very notion of state transformation.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050006)
(0.49 MB) (503 KB)
Water-permit systems are widely used across Africa as a blanket requirement for small and micro irrigation enterprises, as well as large enterprises. The present study aimed to, first, further understand the implications of permit systems for both the most vulnerable and the state, and, second, based on the findings, identify options for pro-poor water legislation that also meet the water governance requirements of the state. The growing recognition of the importance of farmer-led irrigation development for food security across the continent underlines the importance of these questions. Focusing on Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and other African countries, we found that permit systems criminalized instead of protected the water rights of small-scale farmers. Moreover, little if any attention is paid to the logistical burdens and costs to the state of implementing such systems relative to the intended revenue generation. As many small-scale farmers in Africa were found to operate under customary land and water tenure systems, the study proposes a hybrid system of water rights that formally recognizes such practices, along with the use of permits, including enforcement of conditions for large users, to serve the interests of both the state and small-scale farmers.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050609)
(4.44 MB)
This paper looks at scalar politics, power struggles, and institutional emergence in Daw Lar Lake in Karen state, Myanmar. It brings to light tensions between centralized and decentralized approaches in the country’s natural resource governance, and how these are manifested in the current legal stalemate with regard to the formal management status of the lake. Building on earlier research on legal pluralism and critical institutionalism, we look at: 1) how the current legal stalemate with regard to the formal management status of the lake is rooted in ongoing bureaucratic struggles between different government agencies; 2) local communities’ strategies to develop and implement their own vision of lake governance through the formation of the Daw Lar Lake Interim Committee; and 3) the extent to which the Interim Committee is able to mediate diverse and often competing local uses and claims to natural resources at (inter) village level, which are based on a mix of customary and ‘official’ legal entitlements and normative orderings. From a policy perspective, we highlight the need to identify pathways for collective action among and across different groups of resource users, as the latter will be crucial in addressing ongoing resource competition, managing cross-sectoral livelihood impacts and ensuring sustainable lake management.
7 Joshi, Deepa; Monterroso, I.; Gallant, B.; Perera, Kokila; Peveri, V. 2021. A gender–natural resources tango: water, land, and forest research. In Pyburn, R.; van Eerdewijk, A. (Eds.). Advancing gender equality through agricultural and environmental research: past, present, and future. Washington, DC, USA: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). pp.221-258. [doi: https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293915_06]
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050805)
(1.33 MB) (1.33 MB)
8 Mukuyu, Patience; van Koppen, Barbara; Jacobs-Mata, Inga. 2022. Operationalising hybrid water law for historical justice. Final project report submitted to the Water Research Commission (WRC). Pretoria, South Africa: Water Research Commission (WRC). 92p. (WRC Report No. 3040/1/22)
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051685)
(1.46 MB) (1.46 MB)
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051756)
(0.55 MB) (567 KB)
Customary water tenure in low-and middle-income rural areas has received limited academic, policy, and legal attention as yet. This paper seeks to conceptualize and analyse gender-differentiated living customary water tenure, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa. Extensive literature review suggests four gendered domains: first, water needs and uses; second, strategies to meet those needs by directly accessing water sources, and, with increasing wealth by investing individually or collectively in water infrastructure for self-supply, creating infrastructure-related ‘commons’ in the case of collective systems; third, at community scale, the ‘sharing in’ of communities’ naturally available water resources that flow into infrastructure; and, fourth, ‘sharing out’ of those resources with neighbouring communities but also powerful third parties of foreign and national high impact users. Rendering the gendered community more visible as the main agent to manage its water resources as the commons provides evidence for a range of policies, laws and interventions, including gender equitable and community-led water infrastructure development integrating domestic and productive spheres; strengthening customary arrangements to share water resources as a commons within a community or with neighbouring communities, and the long overdue formal protection of customary water tenure against ‘water grabs’ by powerful third parties.
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