6. South Africa-Catchment-Case Process-RIDe
6.2.
Technical support to a process of stakeholder
decision making
This section summarises the process of development of the Resources, Infrastructure,
Demand and entitlements framework: which provided a methodology to structure
catchment level action research.
6.2.1. Background
The focus of the catchment level WHiRL work in South Africa was on providing
technical support to the Save the Sand project in its work of creating and supporting a
catchment level water-user stakeholder forum. In particular efforts to pull together
and use a body of existing work – and data from other sources – to understand and
make informed decisions abut: the current level of commitment of catchment water
resources (with particular reference to meeting the ecological requirements in the
river); the water requirements for the basic human needs reserve; the availability of
water for other uses; possible changes to land use (removal of forestry) to improve
water resource availability.
The main work of the WHiRL project was around the development and application of
the RIDe methodology to this end. It took place within a wider process being
coordinated and led by AWARD, for the Save-the-Sand Project, and of which the
learning and awareness raising processes are fully reported in the next section. As part
of its DWAF-mandated work to pilot the establishment of a catchment water user
forum, AWARD is involved in an ongoing process of developing tools and
approaches to support catchment stakeholders in understanding and adopting their
roles and responsibilities under the countries new legislation.
The process of, and approach to, capacity building and development of a shared
understanding being developed by the AWARD team consists of, in essence, carrying
out over an extended period of time (years rather than weeks!) a series of workshops
and training events with key stakeholder groups. During these events, key information
is introduced and discussed, following which stakeholders return to their own work
and hopefully apply the new information and skills gained. The concept is one of
prolonged building up of capacities, at a pace appropriate to the people involved, and
based on an understanding of their roles and needs.
6.2.2. Development of the RIDe framework
The RIDe framework (6.3 South Africa-Catchment-Methodologies-RIDe) was
developed as a tool to provide conceptual clarity to the catchment stakeholders, in
problem focused approach analysis and decision making about critical issues in
developing and managing their shared water resources. These included:
 How to implement the basic human needs reserve in the catchment. And how,
more broadly, to ensure equitable and sustainable access of all to domestic water
services
 How to maintain the ecological integrity of the river system itself – particularly at
its lower end where it runs through a number of nature conservancies

Other decision relating to land and water management, primarily plantation
forestry and irrigation schemes.
Both the wider programme of developing catchment stakeholder forums, and the
specific work of the RIDe framework are very much action research. As such, the
(relative) conceptual clarity that now exists regarding their use does not really reflect
the process of their development, which was iterative, circuitous and frequently
frustrating. As such what we have developed can only be partially seen as ‘finished
and tested’ tools. Rather they are ‘beta-versions’. Elements of which have been
developed and tested in the real world, but which in their entirety probably contain
many bugs and issues remaining to be ironed out.
Box 6.2.1 The emergence of the RIDe model
For example, the conceptual model that is now presented as RIDe arose from the
struggles of the project team to come to grips with a range of scale and institutional
issues surrounding water resources and water supplies within the Sand catchment.
The central realisation of the team was that infrastructure (the hardware and
institutions needed to bring water to people) was the critical link if we were to talk
meaningfully about on the one hand water resources, and on the other hand water
supplies. This issue crystallised in an attempt to understand the practical implication
so implementing the BHNR within a catchment, and how it linked to water service
provision – most critically the free basic water policy. We realised that it is
effectively meaningless to water users to discuss abstract theories of ‘water rights’ if
their right to a minimum service level cannot be met due to non-existent or failing
infrastructure.
With this understanding we used the RIDe framework to guide a process of collection
and analysis of existing secondary water data, and scenario development and analysis.
The principal steps, and process related issues related to each are briefly discussed
below.
6.2.3. Lessons learned
Many of the lessons learned with regard to the process of catchment level work are
reported in more detail in the sections dealing with the RIDe and PACAM
approaches, and the companion paper to this on training and awareness raising.
Resource and people – supply infrastructure is the missing link
The RIDe work, in particular, was about developing a tool to fit into a process who’s
own outlines were only becoming clear by the end of the project. RIDe emerged from
the struggle of the project team to develop for themselves a clear conceptual
understanding between the linkages of all the different legislative and individual
pieces of the water resource and water services picture in the Sand. The
understanding of infrastructure (hardware AND institutions) as a linking element
between water resources, and people’s demand, while in hindsight blindingly obvious,
represented a moment of genuine breakthrough.
It allowed us to understand how to link water service provision concept like that of
implementing free basic water, to the water resources concepts of the BHNR. The
emergence within the water rights community of the idea that a right is only
meaningful if the means to deliver the water exists, emerged during our work – and
we feel highlights the same issue. It was this insight that has allowed us to bring
together water resources and water services actors to highlight the faulty logic of a
large inter-basin transfer into the Sand – which while nominally developed to meet
domestic water needs, arrives below all domestic water off-takes!
Tools are only useful within processes
South Africa is undergoing a process of enormous change, and as a result people –
particularly in local government and other local level support agencies – are being to
undertake a bewildering range of new activities. Many of the problems: capacity,
motivation to become involved, political expediency and the constant pressure on
stake-holders time and resources are not limited solely to water resources
management. Within this context, individual one-shot training activities are of limited
use. Certainly, using something like the RIDe framework in a single workshop would
make little sense. The context, and process in which such a tool us used is therefore
critical, and some sort of continuity is absolutely essential: in the case of the Sand is
provided by AWARD and the Save the Sand project.
Tailoring messages to audiences – the critical role of the process facilitator
While the RIDe framework, and the models we developed to use it to analyse
different land and water management options, was useful to the team, it was only after
considerable work firstly within the team itself, and then with stakeholders that the
output of mathematical models and number crunching could be made into tools useful
for the catchment stakeholders themselves. Not everyone can read or interpret a
graph. Not everyone has the mathematical or conceptual background to deal in a
meaningful way with complex concepts of risk and variability. One of the emerging
lessons form the work – relevant to the Sand, but also globally as the mantra of
participation is repeated and implemented – is the need for process facilitators with a
wide range of skills, technical, institutional, communications to support these
processes. This is not a job that can be done by existing top down water management
agencies, but nor is it one that can be done by grass-roots campaigning NGOs. The
mix of skills calls for new bodies – whether NGO, government, or private does not
really matter – who can support processes. Without such bodies genuine stakeholder
involvement (as opposed to consultation) will remain an illusion.
Pressures of process versus product
A final lesson worth highlighting from the work of developing process support tools
in the Sand, is the difficulty of tailoring the rigid demands of donor funded research
projects to the necessarily slow, complex, and unpredictable nature of stakeholder
processes. It has been a source of constant frustration to the team that while the
process demanded more time, or a change of direction, or wider consultation, the need
to meet the requirements of a log-frame meant having to move ahead regardless. It
may well be that this problem is insoluble. It certainly will be as long as donors
continue to want to fund products rather than processes.
Read more
Moriarty, P. B., Batchelor, C. H., Smits, S. J., Pollard, S., Butterworth, J. A., Reddy,
G. V., Renuka, B., James, A. J. and Malla Reddy, Y. V. 2004. Resources,
Infrastructure, Demands and Entitlements (RIDe): a framework for holistic
and problem-focussed water resources assessments. WHIRL Project Working
Paper 10. NRI, Chatham.
Pollard, S., Moriarty, P. B., Butterworth, J. A., Batchelor, C. H. and Taylor, V. 2002.
Water resource management for rural water supply: implementing the Basic
Human Needs Reserve and licensing in the Sand River Catchment, South
Africa. WHIRL Project Working Paper 6. NRI, Chatham.
Smits, S., Pollard, S., du Toit, D., Moriarty, P. and Butterworth, J. 2004. Modelling
scenarios for water resources management in the Sand River Catchment,
South Africa. WHIRL Project Working Paper 8. NRI, Chatham.