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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Enduring Contestations: Stakeholder Strategic Action in Water Resource Management in the Save Catchment Area, Eastern Zimbabwe
Authors:Kujinga, Krasposy
Manzungu, EmmanuelISNI
Year:2004
Periodical:Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review (ISSN 1027-1775)
Volume:20
Issue:1
Period:January
Pages:67-91
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs., maps
Geographic terms:Zimbabwe
Southern Africa
Subjects:community participation
water management
water resources
social conflicts
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
Environment, Ecology
water supply
Water distribution
Water law
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/eastern_africa_social_science_research_review/v020/20.1kujinga.pdf
Abstract:By bringing different stakeholders together to play a role in water resources management, Zimbabwe's New Water Act of 1998 tried to place the management in the hands of the actors who utilize the resource, thereby democratizing the process. For the first time, indigenous smallholder farmers were also made stakeholders, a right that had been enjoyed only by a few white large-scale commercial farmers. Through the use of an actor-oriented perspective, the authors examine why stakeholder participatory democracy in the management of water resources is still lacking. They use the case of the Save Catchment Council - in the catchment area covering parts of Manicaland, Masvingo and Mashonaland East Provinces - as a case study. The concept of catchment and subcatchment councils presented to different stakeholders a new set of values which some did not internalize immediately. In the end, the actors devised their own coping strategies. The liberal democratic approach failed to realize that stakeholder groups would adopt different strategies, which formed part of wider contestations over productive resources. In the water sector, the contestations simply shifted from the legal domain and assumed more subtle forms in the mould of 'consultation' and 'participation', the new buzz words of liberal democracy. However, the actor-oriented approach has proved to be an effective theoretical and analytical framework since it places the actors and their actions at the centre of their political, economic and social settings. Bibliogr., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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