Pro-poor water resources regulation in developing countries: lessons from South Africa and Zambia

Water resources regulation is an increasingly critical aspect of effective water resources management and protection in developing countries. However, experiences in water resources regulation in developed countries are not necessarily appropriate for developing countries, where the challenges and available resources are different. In this paper, the authors address an approach to pro-poor regulation, appropriate for a democratic, developmental state in a developing country, drawing on lessons from South Africa and Zambia.\r\nThe paper is based on action-research to shape the use of the General Authorisation tool in South Africa into a pro-poor and transformative legal tool for historical justice, which also reduces the administrative burden on the state, as well as on a technical assistance project to the Zambian government to develop an appropriate and implementable water allocation system for river basins in Zambia. In both, the approach taken focused on enabling small users and the poorest to access water for livelihood development with minimal administrative burdens placed on the state in terms of regulatory requirements, while targeting regulation at the minority of large-impact users.\r\nThe results of the two pieces of work show there are considerable opportunities to design pro-poor water resources regulatory tools, while also reducing the administrative burden on the state. The paper draws out the lessons from this experience that can be used in other developing countries.\r\nThe paper concludes that there is a considerable, but largely untapped scope for the developmental African state to shape and implement pro-poor regulatory regimes and that, if the objectives of regulation are very clear and there is a focus on meeting the water needs of the poor and small scale water users while improving the efficacy of state regulation of large-scale users, a win-win situation is possible that achieves maximum developmental impact with limited administrative resources.