Rural Water Management in Africa: The Impact of Customary Institu ...

Another challenge facing local governments is inadequate knowledge or legal recognition of the customary laws and institutions that governed African communities and resources prior to colonization. In many SSA countries, management of water resources is governed by multiple legal systems with various kinds of laws.

The common types of laws found in SSA countries are:

i. Statutory laws: These are laws that are formally written and changed in legislation and court judgments, and are enforced by the central government.¹¹ In countries with decentralized governments, the lower-level governments (local governments) also enact subsidiary laws called ordinances and bylaws.

ii. Customary laws: These are unwritten laws that are maintained from one generation to another through various transmission mechanisms such as imitation, oral tradition, and teaching.¹² They are based on society’s implicit understanding, including the community’s perceptions, the accumulated wisdom from past experiences, and a current set of values. Examples of customary laws include cultural norms, taboos, superstition, beliefs, values, and social codes of conduct.¹³

iii. Organization laws: These are laws that are made by a formal group of people such as water user groups or associations.

iv. Religious laws: These are codes of ethics and morality, including written doctrines and accepted practices based on certain religious beliefs.

v. Project/donor laws: These are laws associated with particular programs or projects, such as a rural water supply project.¹⁴

The different kinds of laws tend to interact and coexist in everyday social life, creating “legal pluralism.”¹⁵ In some situations, there is a possibility for the different kinds of laws to overlap, as illustrated in figure 1.1. Local-level institutions are embedded in other institutions at the local, organizational, national, and international levels.