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Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth tenure for smallholders on redistributed land remains insecure and this issue that must be addressed in the post-crisis reconstruction. This chapter has also argued that the former white owners of land appropriated in the resettlement process should be compensated, and that ways in which this compensation could be channelled into kick-starting other areas of the economy need to be explored. For land to be fully productive, particularly in the low-rainfall areas, it requires water management. The agricultural sector cannot play the role envisaged in the post-crisis period unless it is made more productive, which will require strategies to manage water use. It is therefore to this that we now turn. Notes 1. The commercial sector then could be disaggregated into large-scale commercial (LSC) and small-scale commercial (SSC). The smallholder sector comprises communal area (CA) and resettlement farms. Within communal areas rights of individual households to the arable land they farm have been strengthening over time. Grazing land remains in communal ownership and is steadily being encroached by the expanding number of cultivators. 2. Official figures show just over 300,000 workers employed on LSC farms in the mid-1990s (Ministry of Lands and Agriculture, 1998). However, there is some dispute over these figures, not least because of an alleged shift towards hiring of casual workers within the sector. After 2000 this figure fell to less than 150,000 as the Fast Track Land Resettlement Programme took its toll on commercial farming, the largest formal employer in agriculture. 3. Arguably this was worsened by disruptions of activities within the commercial farming sectors. 4. The initial design of the then Maize Control Board was aimed at stabilising the industry and making domestic consumers subsidise producers (Muir and Takavarasha, 1988). 5. Government extension expenditure rose from 9.5 per cent of all agricultural expenditure prior to 1980 to 16.8 per cent during 1980-83. 6. This is despite the introduction of a Crop Packs Programme to aid recovery. 7. The term ‘beef cattle’ is used here to refer to all cattle that do not fall into the category of commercial dairy cattle. Under this definition, all communal cattle are classified as beef cattle, even though in practice, communal cattle are used for milk production, draught power and other uses besides the supply of beef. 56
Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth CHAPTER 4: Water 4.1 Introduction One of the key problems of agricultural development in Zimbabwe is that most of the smallholder producers rely on rain-fed agriculture to make a living. Only one growing season per year is possible in Zimbabwe along with most of Southern Africa, compared with two or three in parts of Asia. Given that most of the smallholder farmers are in drought prone areas of the country, it is clear that farm livelihoods are a high risk venture dependent on good rainfall seasons. We saw earlier that a drought is expected once ever four or five years. This implies that availability of water for agricultural use is a major limiting factor even after the land reform programme. The total potential for further irrigation development in Zimbabwe using water from Transboundary Rivers and inland dams, according to the FAO (2000) is 240,000ha. Of this about 90,000ha of this potential lies in the smallholder sector. Where available, irrigation potential transforms livelihoods possibilities and some estimates suggest internal rates of return of between 19-90 per cent when costs of drought relief foregone are included. 1 What is clear however is that good performance depends on: • Active farmer involvement in scheme planning and management. • Cultivation of high value crops, such as horticultural products (some of which can be grown almost continually throughout the year). • Existence of reasonable supporting infrastructure, especially roads, to facilitate scheme links with markets. It is clear however that irrigation and related water harvesting technologies can offer greater opportunities for use of newly acquired land. In this section we look at water reforms and management in Zimbabwe, focusing on the provision of water for agricultural use. This chapter examines the experiences of water reform in Zimbabwe with a view to ascertaining both its challenges and the achievements of the reform in meeting its intended objectives thus far, and the prospects for re-engaging with water reform in a postcrisis period. It argues that although the post-2000 period presented complex social, economic and political challenges to water sector reform, there were inherent limitations embedded within the concept of integrated water resources management which lie at the heart of water sector reform in Zimbabwe. It is suggested that a realistic attempt to re-engage with water reform policy aimed at improving rural livelihoods in a post-crisis Zimbabwe should be aware of ‘old’ and ‘new’ issues that undermine improved access to, and management of, water for rural livelihood improvement. The chapter concludes with some policy recommendations in light of the analysis. 4.2 Reforming access to, and control of, water resources in Zimbabwe Although water was perhaps more inequitably distributed than land, there was little organised political agitation around inequitable access by the various agricultural users. However, repeated droughts and a realisation that having access to surface water can make a difference, meant that the late 1990s witnessed a dramatic transformation in water policy in Zimbabwe. Underlying this transformation was the adoption of the concept of ‘integrated water resources management’ (IWRM) within the national policy framework. At the core of the integrated water resources management concept was an emphasis on the management of water on the basis of hydrological boundaries (namely the catchment and sub-catchment areas), decentralisation of water management, stakeholder participation and representation in water management processes, and the treatment of water as an economic good. In combination, these four principles were viewed as providing an effective framework for water management, aimed not only at the participation of water users in processes and decision making on water, but also at poverty reduction and livelihood improvement, particularly among previously disadvantaged water users, namely communal, resettlement and small-scale farmers. The twin objectives of the water reform were tied to the four key IWRM principles. First, starting from the premise that water must be managed on the basis of hydrological boundaries since they constitute the ‘natural’ boundaries of a river system (Newson, 1997), the case for decentralisation was advanced. Catchment and sub-catchment areas became the bedrock upon which decentralised institutions of water management – catchment and sub-catchment councils – were constructed. Stemming from this, the case for a decentralised institutional framework for water management was drawn from the theoretical appeal of decentralisation which postulates that a more decentralised framework is more exposed, and therefore more responsive to local needs and aspirations (Crook and Sverisson, 2001). As such, decentralisation was viewed as providing systems of water governance that are accountable to local people (see Crook and Manor, 1998; Manor, 1999). Added to this was the notion that decentralisation of water management provides an institutional forum for promoting participation and representation of different water users in decision making processes. Third, proponents argued that treating water as an economic good with a price attached would lead not only to the 57
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