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As South Africa continues to grapple with widespread water shortages and service delivery challenges, new research has highlighted systemic challenges in the country’s water governance framework. The study, conducted by Dr Mmaphefo Thwala as part of her PhD at Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网, not only identifies the policy, institutional and operational gaps undermining water resource protection but also offers recommendations to address them.
Dr Thwala’s PhD examined how policy, institutional and operational factors affect water resource protection, with a focus on the learnings from the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) Resource Directed Measures (RDM) projects. The RDM classify, determine the Reserve and Resource Quality Objectives (RQOs) of the country’s water resources to protect and ensure sustainability.
Her study draws from two RDM projects as case studies: the Mvoti to Umzimkulu RDM project in KwaZulu-Natal Province and the Mpumalanga Province’s Inkomati-Usuthu RDM project. It examined how social learning, which is defined as the joint production of knowledge through inclusive, participatory processes, can support more effective water management. Dr Thwala’s research is part of Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网’s Institutional Research Theme (IRT) on Water Security, which focuses on advancing integrated approaches to water quantity, quality, governance and ecosystem health.
The research applied a social learning lens to assess how government departments and water practitioners engaged with and applied lessons from past water resource protection projects. Dr Thwala collected data through document analysis, semi-structured interviews and workshops with role-players across multiple levels of water governance.
Key findings
By examining how RDM determinations and implementation occurred across different contexts, the study revealed underlying causes of implementation failures, including ambiguous roles, misinterpretation of technical outputs and the absence of review mechanisms to address errors in gazetted RDM outputs
One of the central challenges the research identified is the absence of functional Catchment Management Agencies (CMAs) in most catchments. CMAs are statutory bodies established under the South African National Water Act to manage water resources at regional or catchment level, promoting decentralised decision-making and on-the-ground stakeholder involvement. Dr Thwala noted that the lack of operational CMAs compromises decentralised water management and hampers the ability of local structures to implement RDM outputs.
Despite South Africa’s progressive water laws, including mechanisms like the RDM, implementation remains slow and fragmented. Dr Thwala’s research found that while policies are in place, they are often undermined by capacity constraints, unclear institutional roles and inadequate structures, particularly at local level
“Although government gazettes provide legally binding tools for ensuring adherence to RDM outputs, the lack of a review process means there’s no mechanism for making necessary amendments,” she explains. This results in inability to amend policy stipulations and struggles to address the realities of deteriorating water quality, dwindling supplies and the growing impact of climate change.
Dr Thwala’s research also found that many RDM determination projects are outsourced due to internal capacity constraints. While the DWS national office has a dedicated unit for RDM, the technical work is outsourced. In addition, its provincial offices often lack the skills, resources and institutional mechanisms to implement the outputs effectively.
Learning from past project
Dr Thwala’s findings showed the extent to which institutional capacity affects the success of water resource protection programmes. She found that many DWS provincial offices lacked the technical skills and financial resources needed to carry out RDM implementation functions. These limitations were further compounded by poor coordination between agencies and limited inclusive approaches for stakeholder participation.
“Stakeholder engagement plays a number of important roles, and its purposes need to be clearly defined to allow for differentiated stakeholder engagement in RDM processes, across different groups of interested and affected parties... Knowledge sharing and harvesting requires learning tools that foster feedback and encourage dialogue,” she says.
The study found that in cases where practitioners were given opportunities to reflect on their work and collaborate with peers, outcomes improved. However, such platforms for co-learning and feedback were not common practice.
Implications for communities and the way forwar
Dr Thwala found that policy implementation failures at the institutional level often translate into service delivery breakdowns on the ground. In areas without fully functional CMAs, there was evidence of confusion around who is responsible for implementing RDM outputs, leading to inaction or mismanagement.
Dr Thwala emphasised that effective water governance requires not only technical expertise but also inclusive institutional processes that allow for adaptation and reflection. Without this, water ecosystems remain vulnerable to degradation, with consequences for both public health and economic development.
The study recommends several measures to improve the implementation of water resource protection policies. A key recommendation is the urgent need to strengthen institutional capacity by investing in technically skilled personnel, adequate budgets and functional tools and systems.
“Building the requisite system capacity requires investment in a variety of suitably qualified and technically skilled personnel, budgetary provisions and institutional mechanisms and tools, such as technological models, working equipment and functional units, critical for the execution of RDM functions and sustainable service delivery,” Dr Thwala says.
Her study emphasises that government departments should distinguish between tasks that can be handled in-house and those requiring external support, to encourage practical, hands-on learning within institutions.
The research also calls for the establishment of dedicated platforms for social learning – spaces where water practitioners can reflect on past experiences, share knowledge and collaboratively learn and solve challenges. In addition, Dr Thwala recommends that stakeholder engagement processes must be more inclusive with clearly defined purpose and ensuring that all relevant groups, including communities with indigenous knowledge, are meaningfully involved.
These measures, collectively, would enable more adaptive, co-ordinated and effective water governance at local and national levels.