First, the good news. Water scarcity doesn’t always lead to conflict in developing countries. In fact, people in rural areas often try to cooperate when water is a limited resource. The bad news, however, is that the poor are often excluded from such cooperation. As a result, those who need improved water supply the most may benefit the least.
These are some of the findings recently presented at two international seminars in Uganda and South Africa by researchers from the Competing for Water programme, which seeks to map and explore water conflict and cooperation in five countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The findings have important implications for the development of rural water supply around Africa, which is often funded by development agencies in the North with the explicit intention of improving water supply for the poorest.
The example of Zambia
One example of how the poor lose out in water cooperation comes from Zambia, where researchers from the University of Zambia, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and DIIS have analysed conflict and cooperation over the development of new water infrastructure such as wells.
In order to avoid or overcome conflicts over who has the right of access to wells, community members in the Zambian study area often engage in collaborative efforts such as the establishment of joint rules and committees to manage and share the wells.
This is in itself positive, but unfortunately the poor tend to be excluded from such cooperation as they lack the necessary social status and funds required to take part. As a result, their interests tend to be either overruled or simply not heard. This, in turn, means that they are forced to seek other sources of water that may be less clean and require valuable time and effort to obtain.
Situations such as these suggest a need for greater attention to the ways in which rural water development is governed at the local level, and how new water resources are allocated within communities. For more information on these and related findings, see www.diis.dk/water
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