Page 24 - University of Pretoria Research Review 2017

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Water policy and governance
Magalie Bourblanc, Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa, Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development
Water scarcity and water governance were thrown into sharp relief in 2016 and 2017, with the water crises arising across South Africa, most urgently in the city of Cape Town.
Dr Magalie Bourblanc, a French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) researcher seconded to the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation (GovInn) at UP, has as her research focus, water policy and the way in which water as a scarce resource has been governed in South Africa and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. She works with the Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy
in Africa (CEEPA) in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development. Author of several peer-reviewed journal articles in 2017,
Dr Bourblanc’s research focuses on the implementation of southern African water policies.
Historically, South Africa has always had to contend
with droughts and to manage water in line with the scarcity of the resource in the southern African region. Despite embracing the new global focus on water management that emphasises demand management and the reduction of water consumption, South Africa has, in effect, continued with a supply-side management agenda. Pointing to the role of competing political networks in such policy implementation challenges,
Dr Bourblanc demonstrates, in research published in Water Alternatives, how such competition has hindered the transition to global good practices with respect
to water management, and progress on large water projects.
In research conducted in rural Mozambique,
Dr Bourblanc showed that access to water is hampered by poor maintenance of the water points, and the distances between them. Further, in this research, water justice is not presented simply as access to water, but as participation in decision-making processes and ensuring enduring benefits within communities. This work was co-published with Raphaëlle Ducrot in the journal Natural Research Forum.
A third article published in the Journal of Southern African Studies, with fellow researchers Ducrot and Everisto Mapedza, focuses on strategic partnerships between smallholder and established farmers in the Limpopo Province, South Africa, with the analysis seeking to explain the continued use of policy instruments that have been shown to be ineffective. The research points to the use of strategic partnerships, as forced through by earlier policy decisions, resulting in limited future value for both decision-makers and those at the end of the chain: the water users.
The research conclusions, in all of Dr Bourblanc and fellow researchers’ work, emphasise the power of policy instruments that are usually perceived to be purely technical issues but have, nonetheless, been able to neutralise specific regulatory provisions and public policy objectives that were at the heart of South Africa’s transformation agenda. The conclusions are published in the French journal, Natures Sciences Sociétés in 2017.
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