Institute of Development Studies (IDS)

This 47-page research paper on water resource management focuses on the attempt by some countries to neutralise criticism of their water management policies by creating formal spaces for public consultation and participation. This study looks at the participatory processes (specifically, how local people were consulted and involved) in the building of the Berg River Dam, Berg Water Project (BWP), in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The author analyses the consultations that led to the approval of the dam and concludes that the creation of formal participatory spaces both subverted and neutralised resistance, on the part of the environmental movement, as well as civil society, to the building of the dam.

From the Institute for Development Studies Research Summary of IDS Working Paper 254:

"In the early to mid-1990s, the provincial government asked all ‘interested and affected’ parties to discuss options for solving the Western Cape’s ‘water crisis’...[in] an attempt to democratise the decision-making process... [on] a range of options for dealing with water ‘scarcity’ in the province, including its own preferred option. At the same time, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on the entire project was carried out and made public. Both processes (the WCSA and the EIA) appear to show a high level of government commitment... But on closer inspection, these... served to legitimise the building of the dam while only appearing to give local communities a say in decisions."

The research in this document concluded, among other points, that:

• "Scientific notions of ‘scarcity’ at both global and national levels are often used to justify government policies for managing water resources.
• Formal, government-driven processes served to undermine potential activism around opposition...
• People [need] means to question the official line on water ‘scarcity’ and to meaningfully process or question [information].
• Global environmental debates have... influence on policies and processes,... but government commitment to international protocols and guidelines needs to be followed through and demonstrated in local policies and practice.
• There is a tension between the science of managing scarce natural resources and the language of people’s rights and empowerment.
• So-called ‘democratic spaces’ created by government can weaken the impetus of voluntary forms of social mobilisation and resistance...
• The links between local and national activists’ networks in South Africa were insufficient to mobilise a mass social movement in opposition to the dam."