Policies lost in translation? : unravelling water reform processes in African waterscapes / by Jelsje Sanne Kemerink-Seyoum (Master of Science in Civil Engineering, Delft University of Technology, born in Krimpen aan den Ijssel, the Netherlands)

200 Pages·2015·8.32 MB·English

by  Kemerink-Seyoum

Policies lost in translation?
Unravelling water reform
processes in African waterscapes
Jeltsje Sanne Kemerink-Seyoum
Policies lost in translation?
Unravelling water reform processes in African waterscapes

Policies lost in translation?
Unravelling water reform processes in African waterscapes

DISSERTATION

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of
the Board for Doctorates of Delft University of Technology
and of the Academic Board of the UNESCO-IHE
Institute for Water Education
for the Degree of DOCTOR
to be defended in public on
Thursday, 10 December 2015, 15:00 hours
in Delft, the Netherlands

by

Jeltsje Sanne Kemerink-Seyoum

Master of Science in Civil Engineering, Delft University of Technology
born in Krimpen aan den IJssel, the Netherlands
This dissertation has been approved by the promotors:
Prof. dr. ir. P. van der Zaag and dr. ir. R. Ahlers

Composition of Doctoral Committee:

Chairman Rector Magnificus TU Delft
Vice-Chairman Rector UNESCO-IHE
Prof. dr. ir. P. van der Zaag TU Delft / UNESCO-IHE, promotor
Dr. ir. R. Ahlers Independent Researcher, co-promotor

Independent members:
Prof. dr. E. Manzungu University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
Prof. dr. F.D. Cleaver University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Prof. dr. ir. W.A.H. Thissen TU Delft
Prof. dr. ir. M.Z. Zwarteveen UvA / UNESCO-IHE
Prof. dr. ir. H.H.G. Savenije TU Delft, reserve member

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 2015, J.S. Kemerink-Seyoum
Painting cover by Anne Kemerink

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ISBN 978-1-138-02943-9 (Taylor & Francis Group)
To Helina and Nahom,
may you strive for equity, in whatever form, in whatever way

Abstract

Since the 1980s a major change took place in public policies for water resources management.
The role of governments shifted under this reform process from directing, and investing in,
the development, operation and maintenance of water infrastructure to managing water
resources systems by stipulating general frameworks and defining key principles for water
allocation. This change in policy approach has been criticized based on empirical research
which shows that policies often do not achieve what they envision on paper due to
interpretation, negotiation and rearrangement by socially positioned actors at different spatial
levels leading to uncertain, hybrid and context specific outcomes. However, at the same time,
empirical research shows that the new policy approach has paved the way for the proliferation
and implementation of similar policy models in dissimilar contexts that reinforces inequities
in terms of access to and control over water resources in waterscapes around the world. This
dissertation aims to unravel this scientific paradox by studying to what extent, how and why
the mainstream approach in water policy reforms influence, shape and change the water
resource configurations within waterscapes. To do so, this research examines the interplay
between public policies designed and implemented by government agencies and the
institutions that govern access to and control over water resources among groups of
agricultural water users. How this relationship unfolds within waterscapes that are historically
constituted by natural and social processes is the overarching research objective of this
interdisciplinary study. For this purpose, this research analyzes case studies in four African
countries that have reformed their water policies during the last decades, namely Kenya,
South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The water reforms in these countries have all been
instigated by the global shift in public policy approach and as such share similar narratives to
justify the reform processes as well as aim to achieve similar objectives.

This research builds further on critical institutionalism (e.g. Cleaver, 2002; 2012; Cleaver and
De Koning, 2015), a school of thought that conceptualizes institutions as outcomes of
dynamic social processes that shape, regulate and reproduce human behaviour across time and
space. This theory helps to explain why and how processes of institutional change produce
different outcomes for diverse social groupings in society. To understand the contemporary
policy making processes this research adopts a political perspective in which policies are seen
as outcomes of a discursive practice of policy networks that frame problems and ideas,
construct policy narratives and disseminates policy models (e.g. Conca, 2006; Rap, 2006;
Molle, 2008; Peck and Theodore, 2010). Moreover, this research employs the concept of
waterscape, in which social relations and natural processes are understood to concurrently
constitute and reorder physical environments (e.g. Swyngedouw, 1999; Budds, 2008; Mosse,
2008). This concept is useful to analyze how the outcome of the interplay between existing
institutions and policy interventions materializes within historically produced landscapes and
is affected by physical artefacts such as hydraulic infrastructures. This research uses the
extended case study method (e.g. Burawoy, 1991; 1998) to analyze the water reform
processes in catchments located in the four African countries. The research data is primarily
obtained through 175 semi-structured interviews with large-scale and small-scale farmers and
other actors located within the catchments, which is complemented with data obtained
through focus group discussions, informal conversations, field observations and attendance of
meetings as well as analyzing policy documents, maps, satellite images, databases, scientific
publications and project reports.

Each of the four case focuses on different facets of the reform process in order to thoroughly
comprehend the working and implications of the shift in the policy approach that took place
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Abstract
since the 1980s. The Tanzanian case study focuses on the negotiations over access to water
between and within traditional smallholder irrigation systems during the onset of the water
reform process. This case shows the hybrid and dynamic nature of institutions that govern
water resources as well as how these institutions endure and evolve over time. It gives a
detailed account of how water users use different normative frames from various sources to
legitimize their claims in negotiations over access to and control over water and how this
plural legal reality affects sharing of water between the farmers. The case study located in
South Africa illuminates the contested nature of water reform processes and how this shapes
the interactions between large-scale and small-scale farmers. This case study shows that the
internationally praised South African Water Act is based on different, partly conflictive,
normative understanding and discusses how this leads to a partial implementation within the
still highly segregated South African society. Moreover, this part of the research analyzes how
the use of seemingly neutral policy models, in this case the decentralization through
establishment of water users associations, leads to the reinforcement of structural inequities in
terms of access to and control over water resources in the case study catchment. The case
study in Kenya focused on the rationales used to justify the water reform process and unravels
to what extent these rationales are valid for various kinds of water users in the case study
catchment. It shows that only a few historically advantaged commercially oriented farmers
benefited from the new legislation in the case study catchment, either by adapting to or by
rejecting the water reform process. In particular, this case study identifies several unexpected
and undesired outcomes of the reform process for small-scale farmers who are member of
water user associations and shows how this is linked with the institutional plurality as well as
the type of hydraulic infrastructure these farmers have access to. The last case located in
Zimbabwe studies the implications of the implementation of water reform policies in a
catchment within a rapidly changing context due to instability in land tenure and collapse of
the national economy. This case study show how people respond to the changing conditions,
including the water reform process, by reordering their physical environments and moving
their agricultural activities upstream, where their water use is regarded illegal yet cheaper and
more secured. Moreover, this case study explores the use of satellite images to incorporate
complex socio-nature processes into policy making process to aid policy makers who wish to
respond to dynamic and context specific circumstances.

In the final chapter of this dissertation the extended case studies brought together in an
incorporated comparison (McMichael, 1990; 2000) based on the shared epistemic origin of
the reform processes which has led to similarities in the narratives to justify the reforms as
well as the objectives set and means selected for the reform process. Based on this
comparison this dissertation shows that the water reform processes in the case study countries
contribute to processes of social differentiation that mainly benefits historically advantaged
individually operating water users who produce their crops for the commercial market. This
research shows that the institutions governing the water resource configurations in the case
study areas are dynamic in nature, constantly negotiated, reconfirmed and contested within
the interactions among the farmers. In this process farmers actively use the normative frames
and institutional blueprints that have been introduced by the national governments as part of
the water reform process. They, consciously and unconsciously, have interpreted, reworked,
adopted and rejected parts of the government's policies and combined them with existing
institutions into new hybrid institutions. Also government officials actively participate in this
process, trying to manipulate and craft institutions in an attempt to not only pursue the stated
and unstated policy objectives but also to suit their own understandings and interests. Once
enacted, policies thus add to the legal repertoire actors can draw on in a continuous bargaining
process to establish the institutions that determine access to, control over and distribution of
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Abstract
water resources. Since the agency of actors is neither rigid nor equal, disparately
circumscribing their capability to respond to and manipulate policy interventions, this
dissertation concludes that the water reform policies have altered the institutions that govern
water resource configurations through uneven processes of bricolage (e.g. Cleaver, 2002;
2012).

The findings of this research show that policies do have agency within waterscapes, especially
when they are aligned with the interests of the elite and rolled out through seemingly neutral
or even 'progressive' policy models. As such policies can only to a limited extent contribute to
progressive societal change, especially in this neoliberal era as the interests of influential
actors operating within national and international policy arenas are so tied up and fixed within
a particular normative understanding of the world. This dissertation shows the implications of
this neoliberal inclined shift in public policies towards primarily attempting to steer
institutional processes and excluding technological policy instruments such as investments in
the development of hydraulic infrastructure. Since the majority of the agricultural water users
in the case study countries lack access to (adequate) hydraulic infrastructure, large parts of the
water legislation enacted under the reform processes is not attainable for them and, in some
cases, even lead to undesired outcomes such as further marginalization and transformation of
the waterscapes. This shows a disjuncture between the policy objectives and the selected
instruments to achieve these objectives. Moreover, this research shows that excluding targeted
investments in the development of hydraulic infrastructure for historically disadvantaged
groups has severely narrowed the options and thus the capacity of the governments to redress
the colonial legacy since without these investments the small-scale farmers have little chance
to increase their water use and move their livelihood beyond subsistence.

This dissertation contributes to existing theories and concepts related to institutional processes
and water governance, and particularly to advance critical institutionalism. This research
contributes to enrich this theory in four ways, namely by including the implications of
structural configurations of institutional processes at larger spatial scales on how water reform
processes unfold within contextualized waterscapes. This is achieved by selecting extended
case studies and incorporated comparison as methodological approaches that help to
understand the interactions between processes at various spatial levels as well as by linking
critical institutionalism to theories that explain the political nature of contemporary policy
making processes. Second, this dissertation advances critical institutionalism by adopting a
socio-nature perspective and specifically looking at how the physical environment constitutes
social relations. The concept of waterscapes is used to include the agency of hydraulic
infrastructure as well as the materiality of water in shaping institutions that govern water
resource configurations within waterscapes. Third, this dissertation analyzes the normative
perspectives underlying policy interventions in relation to the normative orders that prevail is
society. In this way it captures not only how authority is possessed and exercised by actors,
but also role of norms and institutions in this process in producing, maintaining and
contesting structural inequities in society (e.g. Foucault, 1979, 1980). And last, this research
contributes to critical institutionalism by attempting to show how the findings of these kinds
of studies can be useful for policy makers. For this purpose this dissertation includes concrete
suggestions for revisiting the current water policies in the case study countries, namely by
embracing the political nature of the policy making process through critical policy analysis;
by engaging in a more profound implementation and learning process to assess contextual
implications of and responses to reform processes; and by adopting a comprehensive policy
approach that includes institutional, financial and technological policy instruments.

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