STRUCTURES FOR COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND LEARNING

As discussed in Chapter 1, Cata was arrived at as a study site due to the existing IWRM practices that are already in place in which community members are participating. Evidence from document analysis, interviews and observations show the following.

Document analysis revealed that a Water User Association is a statutory body of water users who wish to undertake water-related activities for their benefit. Membership of a Water Users Association is limited to registered water users as defined by the National Water Act, people who use water other than for domestic purposes (L6 & L7). Another platform proposed by the National Water Act of 1998 but which has not yet been established is the Catchment Management Forum. A Catchment Management Forum is a non statutory body with open membership. It can be established by a group of stakeholders who come together to address a particular issue. Once that issue has been addressed, the forum may

60 | P a g e come to an end, or it may go on to tackle other issues. The role of Catchment Management Forum is open-ended. Each particular Catchment Management Forum has to respond to local issues. They are meant to be forums for local involvement of stakeholders (L7). However, platforms for community participation in Cata are the local management structures developed around a water resource management practice.

Evidence from interviews showed that apart from the Water User Association launched in 2010 (K3), no other structure for community participation at community level exists as proposed by the South African National Water Act of 1998. This was also evident in the following interview extract:

The Water User Association was previously an Irrigation Board which was solely for big commercial farmers but it has now been transformed. They constitute both former irrigation boards and other individual water users whether big or small (K4).

Through careful observations and interviews I also identified a number of water management communities of practices including the Working for Water community of practice; the Water for Food community of practice; and the Cata Agricultural Project community of practice in which communities participate (FO). Data from interviews showed that community members participate through becoming members of the group such as the Water for Food community of practice or if they are employed through the Working for Water community of practice or the Cata Agriculture Project community of practice through the Cata Communal Property Association. Community members wishing to be employed submit their names to the Cata Communal Property Association or to elected chairpersons in the four respective areas Skafu, Ndela, Nyanga and Qunde that constitute Cata village. This is evident in the following interview extracts:

Cata is divided into four areas which are spearheaded by Chairpersons. Each area has an enrolment list and people who need to be engaged in any activity in Cata register their names with the chairpersons. Qualifications are only needed for specific jobs and those jobs including their qualifications are advertised in schools, community hall, clinic and shops. So if a project requires a certain number of people, then each area chairperson is requested to submit a certain number of people to the Cata Communal Property Association for engagement. These names are then sent to the project that requires people (K5).

Community members wishing to be employed submit their names with the Cata Communal Property Association or elected chairpersons in their respective villages. Once a Working for Water project activity is initiated for instance, a list of would be workers is sourced from the Cata Communal Property Association to work on the Working for Water project. The Cata Communal Property Association coordinates all developmental programs in Cata (S1).

61 | P a g e All community members in need of employment register their names with Cata Communal Property Association. When the Cata Agriculture Project is need of more work-force, names of job seekers are obtained from the Cata Communal Property Association. However, apart from just getting people to be employed, skills that the Cata Agriculture Project requires are considered first (S3).

In short, Cata Communal Property Association coordinates all developmental programs in Cata village, and it is through this that local structures associated with the community based IWRM practices appear to have emerged. The three IWRM practices identified are described below.

4.2.1 Water for Food community of practice

Documents analysis revealed that the Water for Food community of practice is one of the existing local structures through which communities participate and learn at community level (L4, L5, CAM). It is a community of practice promoting the productive use of water for sustainable livelihoods, food security and shared growth, based on household rainwater harvesting reservoirs.

Through focus group discussions with members of the communities of practice, I discovered that the Water for Food group is involved in rainwater harvesting for homestead gardens (S4; FG1:3). It is a group of interested people who wish to capitalize experience, share and create new knowledge and innovations. The main focus of this particular group is sustainable use of water resources for food production within the concept of IWRM. According to data from focus group discussions (FG1:1; FG2:3; FG3:2), the Border Rural Committee introduced Water for Food movement home-gardening approaches in Cata, which included trench gardening and run-on rainwater harvesting in 2003. To date there are 21 families in Cata that are established and are farming ‘Water for Food’ gardens. The Water for Food group has developed strategies focusing on nutrition and home food production through rainwater harvested.

Through observations, I noticed that the Water for Food is an all women (mostly old women) structure, and is involved in home food production through rainwater harvested (see Figure 4.1 below). Although the group is an all women community of practice, both males and females of all ages help with the management of the groups’ activities at their homesteads.

62 | P a g e Figure 4.1: A Vegetable (cabbage & beetroot) garden at one of the

homesteads in Skafu, Cata Village (Source, Denilson, 2011)

4.2.2 Cata Agricultural Project community of practice

Documents analysed revealed that the Cata Agricultural Project is an example of a small holder irrigation scheme where land-rights holders have recently grouped their plots together with full-time, commercial farming in mind. The case revolves around a strong informal partnership between the Border Rural Committee and a local cooperative in the face of ongoing skills and profitability challenges (L5). The Scheme consists of 22.75 hectares, made up of 22 individual plots. The plot owners are members of the project. Institutionally a management committee was set up, including the project members, the Border Rural Committee, and the Cata Communal Property Association, with the intention of improving local participation in decision making and management processes (L5).

Evidence from interviews showed that the farm has 15 plot-holders who are actively involved in the irrigation scheme and the Border Rural Committee has employed a new farming mentor to give intensive support. The total work force employed by the irrigation scheme currently stands at 26 workers (S2; S3).

Data obtained through observations showed that the Cata Agricultural Irrigation Project is involved in a number of activities ranging from river water harvesting to flood irrigation and crop production. Shown below as Figure 4.2 is one of the activities taking place at the irrigation farm.

63 | P a g e Figure 4.2: A crop of cabbage in one of the Cata Agricultural

Project’s fields

4.2.3 Working for Water community of practice

Through documents analysed and interviews, in Cata, the Working for Water project is implemented through the Community Works Programme which is part of the Expanded Public Works Programme. The Working for Water project aims at improving and securing water supplies through engaging local communities in the clearing of invasive alien plants (L2; L4 & K4). Although the main goal of the Working for Water project is to eradicate invasive alien plants in order to recover water, other objectives of the programme include the conservation of biological diversity, and empowerment of local communities through job creation (see Section 1.5.4) (L2; L4).

Evidence from interviews showed that communities participate in the Working for Water community of practice and are involved in clearing large tracts of invasive alien plants such as wattle and eucalyptus. This is evident through a citation from S1: “Community members are engaged to eradicate wattle forests and other alien plants from major water catchments areas, agriculture and grazing lands, and homesteads”. This has resulted in increased water flow in the Cata River, which had nearly dried up as a result of the black wattle infestation. The programme has so far been labour-intensive where community members of Cata are employed by the Cata Communal Property Association working for those hired as contractors under the Working for Water community of practice. The contractors, who are drawn from local communities, direct and supervise the clearing process with their respective community members. The contractors are given contracts by the Working for Water project in collaboration and support of the Cata Communal Property Association. The Cata Communal Property Association is a community-owned association which holds, manages, develops and administers land within the Cata locality on behalf of the community (K5).

64 | P a g e Data from observations also showed members of the community of practice working on the project’s site clearing the black wattles from the water drainage areas (FO), as shown in Figure 4.3 below.

Figure 4.3: Communities employed under the Working for Water

project clearing the black wattle along the water catchment areas