For anybody who hasn’t read Garrett Hardin’s (1968) ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, I thoroughly
recommend it, and to anybody who has, take a deep breath and don’t panic, I
have no plans on reaching similar doom and gloom conclusions here today. Indeed,
as my fans have been quick to inform me, my tone towards African surface water
governance has been, at best a lucid description of the water in which it seems
to be drowning. Today my mood is not so downtrodden, however before explaining
why, we cannot ignore the detrimental impacts that a precedent coined ‘a
tragedy of open access’ has shown in the Asian region towards groundwater
either (Bromley; Grafton 2000). It is this juncture that I will address today, as
the fundamental crux that comes before any other technical or practical
limitations is the difficulty in assigning (or not) property rights (Dalhuisen
et al. 2000). If appropriate frameworks or alternative criteria, can be established
for deciphering ownership rights, then groundwater can unquestionably help alleviate
predictions made by the AdDB that 25 African countries in 2025 will suffer a ‘chronic
shortage’ of water (AfDB 2005).
As has been well documented, things become more complicated
when aquifer boundaries do not correlate to those of the overlying
jurisdictions, and as illustrated in Struckmeier et al’s (2006) map below, this
happens a lot in Africa.
Outside of aquifer
usage, as political ecology has taken on a distinctly commodified approach, it
is understandable that most attempts to conceptualise the legalities concerning
common resources have looked at ways to align proportionate empirical inputs to
reflect the entitlements of use for single parties, and as such single
benefits. In other words, to somehow (and one would argue paradoxically)
apportion private property rights to a common resource.
Accurately delineating the physical make up of an aquifer to
designate certain parts of the process to specific stakeholders is, not only a
very difficult thing to practice with sub-surface water resources, but not the only
available way that transboundary water disputes can be resolved (Comte et al.
2016). We only need to look at how Northern Sudan has welcomed the idea of the
GERD in Ethiopia immediately across its border to see how benefit sharing can
be a solution, reflective of wider opinions that Integrated Water Resources
Management (IWRM is based on the natural boundaries of the basin not
jurisdiction) is a much better way that relying on the jurisdictional confines.
However, in order for theis kinds of more collaborative conduct towards groundwater
resources to be realized, growing on the last post, a more mature
a.) Integration of groundwater
governance methods with other water management institutions needs to be
continued (eg. Surface water, pollution management)
b.) And as such, this can help reconcile
a central strategy of action between all involved stakeholders markedly
improving the efficiency of output with mutually reinforcing governance actions
(Braune and Xu 2010; Knuppe
2011)
Efforts to facilitate IWRM has been encouraged by The Global
Water Partnership and World Water Council who in their findings have cited cross sector dialogues within government being
the most important primary steps to take in establishing common requirements (Foster
et al. 2012). Projects to integrate IWRM in sub-saharan Africa are underway and
not before time as a platform for coordinating this enhancing integration of
sectoral interests is a limiting factor (UNEP 2012, Mehta and Movik 2014).
There is no doubt that the perceived
importance of such co-operative measures will continue to increase when
there is both an increased proliferation of the scientific endeavors that have
helped heighten the social consciousness of unsustainable abstraction practice,
and increasing realization amongst communities of the alleviation that
groundwater extraction can continue to bring in SSA; increasing awareness and participation amongst
local communities has demonstrated itself as being key in groundwater concerns
being taken seriously as debates percolate up through the different tropic
levels of governance power, with the coastal aquifer on the coast of Tanzania and
Kenya proving itself to be a case in point (Comte et al. 2016).
However, the ability to reconcile national policy and
sustainable attitiudes towards groundwater through local action requires as yet
unseen levels of governance sophistication. This shows that the emergent
progress of institutions like the Global Water Partnership in co-ordinating,,
the work of the scientific communities in elucidating the technical
understanding and abstraction requirements, and the work of NGO’s in
facilitating it can all improve. Embeding these fundamental principles in to
institutional constellations is necessary for good governance practice and
integration of groundwater going forward.
Bibliography
Braune, E. & Xu, Y., 2010. The Role of Ground Water in
Sub‐Saharan Africa. Ground Water, 48(2), pp.229–238.
Comte et al., 2016. Challenges in groundwater resource
management in coastal aquifers of East Africa: Investigations and lessons
learnt in the Comoros Islands, Kenya and Tanzania. Journal of
Hydrology: Regional Studies, 5, pp.179–199.
Grafton, Q. (2000): Governance of the commons: a role for
the state?, in: Land Economics 76 (4), 504–17
Mehta, L. et al., 2014. The politics of IWRM in Southern
Africa. International Journal of Water Resources Development, pp.1–15.
Struckmeier W. et al. (2006): WHYMAP and the World Map of
Transboundary Aquifer Systems at the scale of 1 : 50 000 000, Special edition
for the 4th World Water Forum, Mexico City, March
UNEP (2012) The
UN-Water Status Report on the Application of Integrated Approaches to Water
Resources Management: UNEP Division of Communications and Public
Information, Nairobi, Kenya