Water Users Associations in Tanzania: Local Governance for Whom?
Department of Geography, King’s College London, Bush House North East Building, London WC2B 4BG, UK
Water 2019, 11(10), 2178; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11102178
Received: 25 August 2019 / Revised: 7 October 2019 / Accepted: 17 October 2019 / Published: 19 October 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from 2019 World Water Week)
In order to implement Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) according to good practice, governments and development agencies have promoted the setting-up of Water Users Associations (WUAs) as a broadly applicable model for water management at the local level. WUAs are promoted as key to the rolling out of IWRM principles through a participative process. Using intensive qualitative data, this paper discusses Tanzanian WUAs in light of the Regulatory Framework within which they operate. I argue that although the government’s objectives are to achieve an equitable and sustainable allocation of water resources, the formalisation of water allocation has led to the exclusion of specific water users. This paper focuses on the Great Ruaha River Catchment (GRRC), where water scarcity has led to competition between investors and small-scale water users. The GRRC is an environment in which formal and informal practices overlap, due to legal pluralism and the incremental implementation of water governance frameworks. This study calls for a reassessment of the role of WUAs in Tanzania. There is a clear gap between the theoretical clarity of tasks handed to WUAs (particularly their role in formalising access to water), and the messiness of everyday practice.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
Water Users Association; Tanzania; Integrated Water Resources Management; regulatory water management; water allocation
▼
Show Figures
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Richards, N. Water Users Associations in Tanzania: Local Governance for Whom? Water 2019, 11, 2178. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11102178
AMA Style
Richards N. Water Users Associations in Tanzania: Local Governance for Whom? Water. 2019; 11(10):2178. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11102178
Chicago/Turabian StyleRichards, Nathalie. 2019. "Water Users Associations in Tanzania: Local Governance for Whom?" Water 11, no. 10: 2178. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11102178
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
Search more from Scilit