Institutions, Institutional Linkages and Sustainable Water Resources Management : a case of Zimbabwe's Mazowe Catchment
Keywords:
Institutional pile-up,, institutional Associational relationships, confusion of precinct, evaluation criteria, direction accountabilitySynopsis
In the 1990s neo-liberal environment, a blend of eco-catastrophic shocks, international
thinking on integrated water resources management (IWRM) discourse and domestic equity imperatives
on the part of the central government; set the public water sector in Zimbabwe on a reform course
and ushered in new water management rationalities.
Where sectoral planning had constituted the rationality of officialdom, these vicissitudinous
reforms sought to introduce – albeit in a more radical manner – integration. Where centralism
constituted the practice of water management, the water reforms translated into a blend of
decentralization and centralism. These reforms reinvented the Department of Water Development into
the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), decentralized to seven catchments in line with the
hydrological approach to water resources management. In tandem with IWRM’s principle of
involving stakeholders in participatory water resources management, ZINWA works in a
secretariat relationship with stakeholder Catchment Councils made up of representatives from
Sub-Catchment Councils – who in turn represent water users in Water User Boards (WUB). With regards
to equity, the PDS was scraped off and replaced by more evanescent water permits and agreements
that can be revised when more water is demanded. Using the case of Zimbabwe’s Mazowe Catchment, the
study examines the modes of interactions among institutions in land and water management.
Whereas from time to time, both colonial and postcolonial governments crafted numerous institutions
to regulate access to natural resources in ways that at once affected equity in resource access and
subscribed to larger governmentality objectives, this has translated into some form of
institutional pile-up. Thus, the ways in which the colonial and postcolonial government addressed
access and equity issues in natural resource use were, to a larger extent, consequential to
institutional configuration in land and water management. Although stakeholder institutions have
been crafted to foster integration, the study finds that institutions involved in the management of
land and water resources have poor associational relationships – obfuscated mandate based roles,
and lines and direction of accountabilities. There is among these institutions a dearth of
evaluation criteria including any review mechanisms. Consequently, there is on the one hand, an
apparent confusion of precinct, and a salience of lack of compulsion of duty among institutions
that should implement integrated water resources management, on the other.
Formulation and implementation of a catchment master plan, it is suggested, could be a potent tool
to align institutions into desirable modes of interaction that eventually translate into
tainable integrated water resources management.
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