The aim of this chapter is to explain the challenges of decentralisation and management of water as economic good principles of integrated water resources management (IWRM) in Malawi in the rural areas of Ntcheu, Balaka, and Mangochi. Semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, community meetings, and observation of water points were conducted. It was established that households and other state institutions prefer to receive services from Mpira-Balaka Water Users Association, which subsidizes households, rather than Southern Regional Water Board, which operates along commercial lines. The chapter questions the focus in the implementation of IWRM, which remain the establishment and fixing of decentralised institutions whilst recognising water as an economic good.
TopIntroduction
In the 1990s, there was an increase in the emphasis on governance of water and sanitation services as a participatory process, with various stakeholders negotiating water allocations for various uses. The Dublin Conference of 1992, the organisation of annual World Water Forums (WWF) by the World Water Council, the establishment of the African Council for Water Ministers (AMCOW) and many river basin authorities established by Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in Africa such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) played an important role in strengthening the implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in Africa (Allouche, 2016, van Koppen et al, 2016, Mehta, et al, 2016). The water and sanitation experts who participated in the crafting of IWRM, agreed on 4 principles commonly known as the Dublin Principles (Solanes and Gonzalez-Villarreal, 1999).
- 1.
Freshwater is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment;
- 2.
Water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels;
- 3.
Women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water; and
- 4.
Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognised as an economic good (Global Water Partnership (1992) cited in Manzungu and Derman, 2016, Derman and Prabhakaran, 2016).
The implementation of the second and the fourth IWRM principles meant that the provision of water supply and sanitation services were devolved to lower levels of government. State water utilities were increasingly expected to commercialise their services and also to privatise as part of the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) implemented by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the 1990s as a condition to get loans from these institutions (Manzungu and Derman, 2016). In the SADC region, many countries began to implement IWRM as part of the conditions imposed by donors (van Koppen et al, 2016, Manzungu and Derman, 2016, Mehta, et al, 2016).
Malawi is one of the first countries assisted by international donors to implement IWRM by 2005 as agreed upon during the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) which took place in Johannesburg in 2002 (Mehta, et al, 2016, Jonch-Clausen, 2004, Manzungu and Derman, 2016). The focus was on establishing water and sanitation institutions, whilst ensuring that water is managed at the lowest level possible through decentralisation. This started in 1998 with the promulgation of the Decentralisation Act of 1998 and subsequently the election of the first group of local government councillors in 2014 since the country gained independence from Britain in the 1960s and recognition of water as an economic good in policy documents (van Koppen, et al, 2016). Mpira Water User Association (MWA) and Southern Region Water Board (SRWB) are some of the institutions established to devolve the management of water and sanitation services from the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Development (MIWD) to lower levels of government.