Your search found 2 records
1 Mapedza, Everisto; van Koppen, Barbara; Sithole, P.; Bourblanc, M.. 2016. Joint venture schemes in Limpopo Province and their outcomes on smallholder farmers livelihoods. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 92:92-98. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2015.10.016]
Smallholders ; Living standards ; Irrigation schemes ; Sprinkler irrigation ; Gender ; Male labour ; Female labour ; Land resources ; Water resources ; Water use ; Multiple use ; Sustainability / South Africa / Limpopo Province
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047393)
(1.48 MB)
Joint Venture schemes based on the floppy irrigation technology are being promoted in the post-Apartheid South Africa's Limpopo Province. Access to land and water resources in South Africa are largely viewed as a mechanism for re-dressing the Apartheid injustices. This research was part of a broader applied research to help inform irrigation practise in the Limpopo Province. The research used literature review, key informant interviews and a questionnaire survey. The overall research question sought to understand how the Joint Venture Schemes had benefited the smallholder farmers. This paper argues that the joint venture partnership created a new injustice. Firstly, the Joint Venture Scheme design is fundamentally a bad idea which disempower farmers not only to water access but also land as well. The choice of the ‘efficient’ floppy irrigation technology was made by the state and entailed that land had to be managed as a single unit. In order to make more effective use of this highly sophisticated new technology, the smallholder farmers also needed to go into a joint venture partnership with a white commercial farmer. By virtue of signing the Joint Venture agreement the farmers were also forfeiting their land and water rights to be used for crop production. The smallholder farmers lost access to their water and land resources and were largely relegated to sharing profits – when they exist - with hardly any skills development despite what was initially envisaged in the Joint Venture partnership. Secondly, the implementation of the JVS has been skewed from the start which explains the bad results. This paper further shows how the negative outcomes affected women in particular. As the smallholder farmers argue the technological options chosen by the state have excluded both male and female farmers from accessing and utilising their land and water resources in order to improve their livelihoods; it has entrenched the role of the state and the private interests at the expense of the smallholder male and female farmers in whose name the irrigation funding was justified. The paper concludes by offering recommendations on how joint venture schemes can be genuinely participatory and meaningfully address the rural livelihoods.
2 Bourblanc, M.. 2017. State transformation and policy networks: the challenging implementation of new water policy paradigms in post-apartheid South Africa. Water Alternatives, 10(2):303-321.
Water policy ; Water demand ; Water resources ; Water management ; Water saving ; Water use efficiency ; Hydraulics ; Public administration ; Public-private cooperation ; Policy making ; Decision making ; Dams / South Africa
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048166)
http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol10/v10issue2/357-a10-2-7/file
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H048166.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H048166.pdf
(830 KB)
For many years, South Africa had represented a typical example of a hydrocracy. Following the democratic transition in South Africa, however, new policy paradigms emerged, supported by new political elites from the ANC. A reform of the water policy was one of the priorities of the new Government, but with little experience in water management, they largely relied on 'international best practices' in the water sector, although some of these international principles did not perfectly fit the South African water sector landscape. In parallel, a reform called 'transformation' took place across all public organisations with the aim of allowing public administrations to better reflect the racial components in South African society. As a result, civil engineers lost most of their power within the Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation (DWS). However, despite these changes, demand-side management has had difficulties in materializing on the ground. The paper aims at discussing the resilience of supply-side management within the Ministry, despite its new policy orientation. Using a policy network concept, the paper shows that the supply-side approach still prevails today, due to the outsourcing of most DWS tasks to consulting firms with whom DWS engineers have nourished a privileged relationship since the 1980s. The article uses the decision-making process around the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) Phase 2 as an emblematic case study to illustrate such developments. This policy network, which has enjoyed so much influence over DWS policies and daily activities, is now being contested. As a consequence, we argue that the fate of the LHWP Phase 2 is ultimately linked to a competition between this policy network and a political one.
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