| Chapter 1: | Water Resources Development and Management in Sub-Saharan Africa |
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Statutory and Customary Laws in Water Resources Management
Central governments, using formal statutory laws modeled after Western legal systems but hampered by limited capacity, are nowadays the dominant player in decision making and the management of water resources, particularly for mega hydropower and irrigation projects and to meet basic needs of urban populations in most African countries. Since independence, governments have increasingly made inroads into customary laws and decision making, which were developed locally, managed on a day-to-day basis and still prevail in many rural areas (Sokile & Van Koppen, 2004; Maganga, Kiwasila, Juma, & Butterworth, 2004). The diminution of their importance, observed throughout the developing world, has been associated with the transformation of informal indigenous water economies from rural to urban and from household self supply to modern, centralized water supply. Yet in SSA, more than 95% of the region's household water economy continues to rely on self supply and community institutions (International Water Management Institute, 2007) and must be considered in water policies, especially for rural areas (Nkonya, 2008). Integrated water resources management (IWRM) promotes the integration of local laws and institutions into management systems (Butterworth, 2006). Another important feature of IWRM is the formation of partnerships, including public-private partnerships (the predominant model in services provision) and water users associations (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 2009). This trend has not, however, abolished the dominating top-down, authoritarian approach continuing to prevail in many SSA countries, posing a major impediment to the evolution of equitable, sustainable, and environmentally sound management of water resources, as described in most chapters.
Leapfrogging of African Water Development Policies
It might be argued that SSA can “leapfrog” in the development of its water policies by learning from the knowledge and lessons acquired elsewhere in the world (Shah et al., 2005). If one takes a teleological view of water resources development, one could even contend that