You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This paper presents an overview of water-related governance structures and institutions in the Limpopo Basin. The Basin is of critical socio-economic importance to the 14 million peopledistributed across the four riparian states of Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.Urban centers, mostly in Botswana and South Africa, are major water users supplying industries, power stations and municipalities. Water is also used in rural areas for domestic, livestock watering and irrigation purposes. While irrigated agricultural activities are largely concentrated in South Africa and Zimbabwe, the majority of rural populations engage in rain-fed agriculture, which does not guarantee secure livelihoods. This is due, in large part, to the region’s semi-arid climate where only two out of every five agricultural seasons produce reasonable crop yields. These climatic conditions emphasize the need for effective management of transboundary water resources and effective governance structures, delivery and control mechanisms. Appropriate institutional frameworks and governance structures have a pivotal role in defining the socio-economic situation of the people in the Basin.
The fifteen chapters of this book analyse the living community-based water laws in Africa, Latin America and Asia and critically examine the interface between community-based water laws, formal water laws and a variety of other key institutional ingredients of on-going water resources management reform.
Women, Men and Work is a collection of studies on livelihoods in south-eastern Zimbabwe. It looks at the essential contribution of children to the livelihoods of poor families. We see how women and children sometimes suffer because a development project is placed in the control of men. Two chapters explore the tension between conserving the natural environment and making money from it through crafts, and the different perspectives that arise out of this tension. We see how some women seek to alleviate poverty by selling their sexual services. We see how new technologies for processing foods fail to take account of local needs, and how their usefulness is consequently diminished. All the studies show the significance of local context to understanding how people manage available resources.
This research has its roots in de evidence that was produced in the eighties on the detrimental impact of irrigation projects on gender equality. Why it is that irrigation development negatively affects gender equality? Out of an explicit feminist commitment, the linkages between gender (in-equality and irrigation development are explored from two different angles. The first angle consists of a critical discussion of current theories that underlie irrigation planning and policies. In many ways, these theories make it difficult to properly recognize and accommodate gender relations. At the same time they are based on an incomplete and often inadequate understanding of these relations. The second angle consists of a number of case studies undertaken in different countries (Nepal, Sri Lanka, Niger, Burkina Faso) to empirically explore how and where gender relations affect and are affected by irrigation management policies and practices.
Co-published with UNESCO A product of the UNESCO-IHP project on Water and Cultural Diversity, this book represents an effort to examine the complex role water plays as a force in sustaining, maintaining, and threatening the viability of culturally diverse peoples. It is argued that water is a fundamental human need, a human right, and a core sustaining element in biodiversity and cultural diversity. The core concepts utilized in this book draw upon a larger trend in sustainability science, a recognition of the synergism and analytical potential in utilizing a coupled biological and social systems analysis, as the functioning viability of nature is both sustained and threatened by humans.
This revised and updated edition provides a comprehensive synthesis of Southern Africa's archaeology over more than 3 million years.