South Africa is a water-scarce country, the 30th driest in the world. Using water wisely will become more and more important as the population grows and droughts related to climate change increase. A lack of clean, fresh water has a negative impact on people’s health and on the amount of food that can be grown.
Agricultural economist Saul Ngarava studied 1,184 homes in South Africa’s North West, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape provinces to see which types of water governance resulted in better water, energy and food security. He found that the best results were achieved where water was governed democratically by different types of organisations working together.
