Water and development narratives
Andre Gunder Frank argues that this contributes to the discursive creation of the dichotomy between developed and under-developed countries. This narrative inevitably sets standards of development aid which are picked up by international institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the United Nations that provide aid to developing countries. An unequal power relation of dependency is thus created and/or maintained.
Generally speaking, countries receiving donations don’t get a say in development programs they participate into, and they have to conform to donors’ expectations. Local governments and populations are bypassed and become passive observers. The SDGs try to act upon this structural issue as well, by promoting agency and participation. In particular, SDG 16 addresses institutions. Allowing and promoting agency in situ remains a work in progress.
How are these discursive concerns relevant to water, if at all? Surely imposing water sanity standards cannot do harm? … It’s not that easy. One striking example is the Water Stress Index. The WSI defines the water stress threshold at 1000 m3 per capita per year. This value has been criticised for being based on Western standards of water consumption, for ignoring groundwater resources which constitute a primary source of water in many African regions, and for disregarding water quality in favour of water quantity. Despite its flaws, the WSI has been used a lot by development literature to alert on the situation in Africa and to justify foreign aid. One should however point that the focus of many international organisations, NGOs and academic publications seems to be shifting away from the WSI to other indicators, such as access to safe water.
Other examples can be mentioned, such as the exclusion of African knowledge from the WASH sector (Water Sanitation and Health), or a bare focus on infrastructures (such as pipes for example) that disregards the service actually offered. These examples all illustrate how development work around water is done from abroad, from an external context, in an attempt to “westernise” a passive Africa.
I don’t mean to say that all development aid is wrong and that issues around water in Africa are all discursively created by a neo-colonial international order. But the way we frame issues do influence how we solve them, and I hope this post has shown that the framing of water issues in Africa by development narratives is questionable. I will explore in future posts how these narratives can serve as a background favourable to capitalist expansion and exploitation.
But to finish on a brighter note, alternatives to these problematic development narratives have been suggested and are being practised. Post-colonial perspectives have for example been casting a new light on development literature for more than a decade. With regards more specifically to water, Integrated Water Resource Management, a holistic approach to water management that brings in local actors, is on the rise in Africa.
Great post! I really enjoyed your reflection on competing discourses of water in Africa. I wonder how this plays out in terms of adapting to water scarcity? - especially in the context of the impacts of climate change. Also how do African scholars imagine water in Africa? different or the same?
ReplyDeleteHi, these are interesting questions you raise, thanks!
DeleteAs for the competing discourses, they may lead to adaptation strategies that fail to reach their goals. If a policy is misplanned (because it takes some standards for granted, because it identifies the wrong cause, because it is based on a flawed research agenda, or because it omits to consider local contexts) it is less likely to successfully tackle the initial problem – be it linked to irrigation, sanitation or conservation. But of course external aid does not have to fail, and if it does one cannot only blame flawed narratives.
As for how African scholars picture water and development, my understanding is that precipitation variability being much greater in many African regions than in the UK for example, there is a long tradition of adaptation. I imagine an African perspective may therefore be more adaptation-oriented than mitigation-oriented.
I expand a bit more on these topics in my COP 26 post and I also link some sources, feel free to have a look at it.
"An unequal power relation of dependency is thus created and/or maintained".......this comment resonates with concerns that political ecology contend with, which is broadly the complex intersection of nature and society. This is a succinct expose of the complex issue that water and development represent, and it is nicely presented. Could it be that the challenges emerging over water and development across the continent of Africa are also an issue of power and knowledge masked by notions of colonial and postcolonial discurse?
ReplyDeleteThanks Clement. I do think the political ecology approach can be very useful when it comes to water and politics. I’ll try and explicitly refer to it in future posts.
DeleteI wouldn’t say that the post colonial discourse _masks_ issues linked to knowledge. On the contrary, I believe the post colonial lens can draw attention to problematic patterns of knowledge creation and use, which some other narratives (like the neoliberal one for example) may portray in a much more positive light.