Decolonising water

A recent research report from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has lead to a great deal of discussion in the press around water rights in Africa and how they are affected by colonial legacies.

In van Koppen and Barbara Schreiner's study they found that in most cases African water rights work on a system of water rights. Water Permits require those who use substantial amounts of water, usually anything more than domestic usage, to apply for a permit from the government, these were established under colonial rule in nations such as Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe, and acted to provide a substantial source of income for the government as well as granting them control of such a vital resource. Whilst many of these nations, and up to 50% of Sub Saharan African governments do also recognise customary water rights these are limited to domestic use and very limited irrigation, making anything more than this illegal (Reuters, 2018).

The legacy of these colonial water policies promotes inequality between water users. Large-scale water users (such as large scale commercial farms, mining and industry) are benefited whilst smaller scale operations such as smallholder farmers are stuck in a position of illegality. Large businesses have the knowledge and money to know their way around the permit system and thus quickly acquire legitimate access to water. It is also in the governments interest to make sure they have permits for economic reasons as well as to manage the potentially large amounts of water they are using. However not only do smallholder farmers not have this knowhow there is also the logistical issue that many African governments do not have the resources necessary to get people to apply for permits or to process the vast number of applications that would be necessary to legitimise such a large number of small scale users. So whilst these users are breaking the law there is no way for them to make their use legal under the current system.

Large scale irrigation in South Africa. Source

The report argues that small scale users are marginalised by these laws. Permit systems in effect veto informal water rights upon which they have based their investments for water infrastructure. The importance of this can be seen in Limpopo Province in northeast South Africa. Here private, informal irrigation covers three times the area of public systems (Van Koppen et al. 2017). Whilst a blind eye is turned to this by the authorities and people are rarely prosecuted their are practical as well as moral issues with a system which forces people into criminality. One of the potential issues that can be foreseen from this system is that their illegitimate status may make farmers less likely to risk any large scale or long term investments as illegal water use always carries the risk that supply may be cut off or a fine imposed. As I argued two posts ago private investment in small scale irrigation may be a decisive step in the search food security and poverty alleviation, legal protection for these investments is surely a key step in incentivising them. van Koppen and Schreiner make the point that as well as dis-incentivising investment a lack of water permit can in fact make it impossible. As their water use is not technically legal some banks will refuse to issue a loan for irrigation schemes to a landowner who does not have the required permit.

Small scale irrigation. Source

"permits gave stronger entitlements than water uses by non-permit holders, which led to the concentration of entitlements among the few high-impact users, and the criminalization, marginalization and unfair treatment of the small and micro-scale water users." (van Koppen and Schreiner).

The above quote for me sums up the core message of the report and emphasises the importance of decolonising water regulation to encourage development and establish a fair and just legal framework. A suggestion for how this may be done is a hybrid system where you legitimise both customary rights and permits in law rather than just in practice, thus allowing you the best parts of both systems. In order to legitimise customary uses such as smallholder farming governments could raise the water use limits at which a permit is required to a point above that used by small scale users. This would remove the key issue of 'millions' of farmer's water use being technically illegal without the increase in government resources that would be necessary to issue permits to these users.  A hybrid system would also allow for the 'good' parts of the permit system to remain, namely that high impact users who have the most potential to effect others are regulated. Putting these two groups on equal standings vitally helps the development of agriculture and goals such as food security and poverty alleviation. By creating a system in which water allocation is not decided based on whether or not you have a permit it can be decided on what will best help national goals, for example giving greater allocations to small farms to increase production of food that will likely stay in the local area, something that can not be said of larger farms.

The need for these changes is time-sensitive, with population growth and climate change increasing water scarcity in sub-saharan Africa water regulation and distribution is likely to become a far more pressing issue, particularly within the water thirsty, but vital, agricultural sector. Thus it is important that it is based around a framework that is both fair and designed to help meet development goals rather than being based on the remnants of a system intentionally designed to benefit the minority and control the poor.