Can South Africa’s rural poor be guaranteed water?

South African legislators have sought to ensure that domestic water is sufficient for rural populations by introducing the concept of water as a basic entitlement. Among other features, this means guaranteeing to every individual a minimum of 25 litres per person per day, within 250 metres of the home. This is the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) minimum. In arid areas, however, this target is proving difficult to achieve. South Africa’s struggle to provide the poor with sustainable water supplies provides valuable lessons with global implications.

A report from the Water, Households and Rural Livelihoods Project, co-ordinated by the Natural Resources Institute, assesses efforts to improve water security in the Sand River Catchment in drought-prone north-eastern South Africa. Critiquing policies to ensure water security, it identifies gaps in research and in popular and official knowledge of water catchment issues.

South Africa now formally recognises that water should be managed on a catchment basis, that water is needed both to meet basic human needs and as a resource base itself, and that it should be paid for. The National Water Act imposes a requirement to ensure the protection of the water resource base, as well as to secure sufficient water to meet basic human needs prior to any other allocation of water. It sets out procedures to bring together local stakeholders to run Catchment Management Processes (CMAs). The first CMA has been through legal processes required to become a statutory body and three more of the nineteen CMAs are to be gazetted this year. However, policy changes aimed at redressing past inequities and unsustainable practices remain in a state of transition. In the former apartheid-era Bantustans there has been little change in water use patterns.

Policymakers and planners alike generally assume that surface water is the main source of meeting the Basic Human Needs Reserve (BHNR) – the quantity of water required at a water source to meet the RDP entitlement – and that bulk water supply systems can deliver surface water to everyone. In fact, in rural areas, people access water from multiple sources, particularly groundwater. Bulk water supply systems are not fully developed and may not represent the best use of either financial or water resources for water supply in isolated rural areas.

Other problems affecting catchment management and rural water provision are:

• lack of reliable information regarding current water use or demand
• vagueness about the role of local government in identifying and safeguarding the BHNR
• the unrealistic assumption that no water is lost between the source and the consumer
• complacency that implementing the BHNR will address water demand – this ignores both the actual and potential role of water in productive activities
• members of rural communities and their elected representatives lack enough knowledge regarding the entitlement, the BHNR, the Reserve, and rural water allocation to engage in CMA decision-making.

Access to a sustainable and adequate supply of clean water is critical in the fight against poverty. Achieving this requires:

• working with local government to raise awareness and develop capacity to take part in catchment management and rural water allocation decisions
• better linkages between water resource management and water services provision
• greater collaboration between researchers and practitioners
• developing a user-friendly decision support system (DSS) in each catchment, based on a geographical information system and water balance model
• a clear definition of entitlement and the BHNR (source, amount and quality) needed to secure this, a consideration of its adequacy for meeting households’ water needs, and the establishment of roles and responsibilities for its delivery.

To ensure that rural water supply needs are met, attention must be paid to both supply and demand issues. Both ground and surface sources of water must be considered, and reliable information on water use generated. In addition, awareness about such concepts as the BHNR, entitlements, and water over and above this for small-scale productive purposes must be raised among local councillors and other stakeholders to allow them to more effectively represent people’s interests.

Source(s):
‘Water resource management for rural water supply: implementing the basic human needs reserve and licensing in the Sand River Catchment, South Africa’ by Sharon Pollard, Patrick Moriarty, John Butterworth and Charles Batchelor, WHIRL Project Working Paper 6, 2002 Full document.
'Catchment management and water supply and sanitation in the Sand River Catchment, South Africa: description and issues' by Sharon Pollard & Phillip Walker, WHIRL Project Working Paper 1, 2000

Funded by: DFID (IUDD) R7804

id21 Research Highlight: 21 January 2005

Further Information:
Sharon Pollard
Association for Water and Rural Development (AWARD)
Private Bag X483
Acornhoek 1360
South Africa

Tel:   +27 15 793 7500
Fax:   +27 15 793 7509
Contact the contributor: sharon@award.org.za

Association for Water and Rural Development, South Africa

John Butterworth
Water, Households and Rural Livelihoods (WHiRL) Project
Natural Resources Institute
University of Greenwich at Medway
Central Avenue
Chatham Maritime
Chatham
Kent ME4 4TB
UK

Tel:   +44 (0)1634 880088
Fax:   +44 (0)1634 880077
Contact the contributor: j.a.butterworth@gre.ac.uk

Natural Resources Institute, Greenwich, UK

Other related links:
DFID Infrastructure Connect

Towards good water governance

Tackling India’s rural water crisis: new developments in managing water supplies