In this short post I want to show you some of the difficulties associated with legislating water in Africa that I came across when reading an IWMI research report and an FAO paper.
The report details a colonial legacy in aspects of African water legislation that persist across the continent today. In the report, van Koppen and Schreiner (2018) detail how the primary legislative mechanism for appropriating water use in Africa is a permit system that is a legacy of the colonial era, during which time permits were privileged to settlers. Permits are given by the relevant government agency to various water users. Focusing on Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa, van Koppen and Schreiner (2018) detail how the permit system excludes small scale and rural water users, and propagates historical colonial inequalities and divides.
Further, formal national (or regional) legislation may encroach or come into direct contradiction with localised or customary water laws. This form of legislation may far predate national African water laws (who are no older than 70 years old) and may run along ethnic or linguistic boundaries which do not coincide with national ones. If, in the case of many African countries, the rights of indigenous groups are not guaranteed then the prospect of customary laws being overruled or ignored through national ones is likely. In this context, water legislation becomes a domineering force with the power to subjugate and make sub-altern marginalised communities. For example, in Nigeria national (statutory) laws governing water always take precedence over customary laws (FAO, 2004) in the case of conflict (although it is worth noting that customary law is generally highly regarded).
The FAO (2004) note that the legislation in Nigeria is often unclear and in these cases it is difficult to judge the competing water users' relative needs. If legislation is not universal then it certainly marginalises any groups or users who it does not include. I hope to unpack this further over the course of this blog.
Well presented succinct summary of the complex intersection of global and national water legal framework for water in Africa, showing good engagement with literature with a useful case study. You made mention of SDG, how do they fit with the evolving water framework in your case study Nigeria?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments Clement - unfortunately I decided to take out all of the stuff on international water legislation in order to make more room for my case studies in later posts. I think the SDGs probably don't come into my case study of Nigeria too much - I doubt they really interplay or overlay national or customary legislation
Delete