From the congested, chaotic cities of Nigeria to the dusty pastoral villages of Kenya, lack of water can often lead to violent conflicts between ethnic, religious, and economic groups. Without mechanisms in place to peacefully and equitably allocate scarce resources, these conflicts lead to damaged water infrastructure and weakened management institutions, inhibiting access to water for sanitation, health, and livelihoods.
But peaceful, collaborative water management is possible. In war-scarred Liberia, villages are banding together to upgrade and maintain water points, build latrines, and improve community hygiene with USAID support.
“Water resources are often shared across cultural and political borders and between communities,” explained Mary Ackley, a conflict and natural resources specialist at USAID’s Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM). “But when water is viewed as a shared interest, management of scarce water resources can lead to cooperation rather than conflict.”
USAID works with conflict-affected populations to improve water security while facilitating cooperation and coexistence. “We strive to help people improve their ability to manage water together in a peaceful way that also maximizes the utility and sustainability of the resource,” said Cynthia Brady, senior conflict advisor at CMM.
“It’s a two-way street,” she continued. “We recognize that improving environmental governance can fundamentally reduce unhealthy competition over resources that can otherwise lead to conflict and, at the same time, strengthening mechanisms for conflict resolution can actually facilitate more thoughtful and strategic decisions around water resource management resulting in improved sectoral outcomes.”
This is particularly urgent in sub-Saharan Africa, a region with more water-stressed countries than any other. According to current projections, up to 250 million people in Africa could be living in areas of high water stress by 2030. The United Nations has cautioned that climate change, coupled with population growth and weak governance, could lead to increased conflict over resources in parts of Africa in the future. A number of USAID’s sub-Saharan programs are looking to forestall disaster by addressing water issues in an equitable, sustainable, and conflict-sensitive way.
Water for Reconciliation
In Liberia, successive civil wars between 1989 and 2003 wreaked havoc on WASH infrastructure. Eleven years after the war ended, the country is still reeling from its impacts. The majority of the population lacks access to safe WASH facilities, and seven percent of children die before their 5th birthday. USAID’s five-year, $10 million Improved Water Sanitation and Hygiene (iWASH) program is bringing communities there together to address these issues and make public health a dividend of peace.
The core of iWASH’s approach is community-led total sanitation (CLTS), a collective behavior change methodology in which community leaders visually demonstrate the proximity of fecal matter to food and water sources to other community members, invoking feelings of shame and disgust and spurring them to work together to build latrines, educate each other about hygiene and sanitation, and achieve open defecation-free status.
These influential, motivated community members are called “natural leaders.” “These natural leaders are the point people for encouraging their communities to build latrines and clean up their environment,” said Pieter DeVries, chief of party for iWASH. “Once they have been successful in their own communities, they move to a neighboring community and repeat the process.”
When this happens, communities hold celebrations and are rewarded with rakes, cutlasses, shovels, wheelbarrows, and other tools to help them continue to build latrines. These celebrations help communities reinforce their commitment to improved sanitation and hygiene, and even aid with the process of reconciliation. “Natural leaders from historically conflicting communities have joined together in networks and performed joint celebrations of attaining open defecation-free status. Through these interactions the communities have become closer,” said Mr. DeVries.
After years of war, the country is enjoying the benefits of peace. More than 200 communities have been verified open defecation-free, 364 natural leaders have joined networks, and 112 natural leaders have successfully helped neighboring communities achieve open defecation-free status.
Water For Stability
In Nigeria, corruption is rampant, service delivery is weak, and some areas of the country, particularly northern Bauchi State, are plagued by periodic violence between ethnic and religious groups over political power, cattle, land, and natural resources. Weak, unresponsive governance exacerbates these conflicts.
USAID is thus working in Nigeria to strengthen civil society’s ability to advocate for their needs and improve the government’s ability to meet these needs. Increasing the government’s ability to provide water to its citizens is central to these efforts. “The ability of government to provide basic services such as water and sanitation very directly relates to economic growth, public confidences, and stability efforts,” said Nene Sobande, WASH program manager at USAID/Nigeria.
In Bauchi State, where just 36 percent of the population has access to water and just 22 percent has access to sanitation, USAID’s Sustainable Water and Sanitation in Africa (SUWASA) program is working to make the urban water and sanitation provider more effective, efficient, and financially viable. The program is a crucial part of USAID’s work to improve public services, increase legitimacy, and boost stability in the fragile, impoverished region. It does so by engaging and building the capacity of water sector stakeholders there with workshops, meetings, and study tours.
It is also training employees of the state-owned Bauchi State Water Board utility to improve revenue collection. This will help improve the quality and sustainability of services. Currently, only one-third of customers even receive a bill, and then only five percent of those end up paying for the service.
In order to further increase sustainability, SUWASA worked to encourage the government to implement wide-ranging water sector reforms. But frequent changes in senior personnel at the State Ministry of Water Resources made this a long and difficult process. Over the past year and a half, SUWASA dealt with two different permanent secretaries and commissioners. This delayed key decisions in the reform agenda due to the time required by the new office holders to learn about previous processes.
Months of capacity building and lobbying finally paid off in April 2014, when the Bauchi State parliament approved a law that will set up a regulatory framework for the water sector. This will lead to the adoption of a more commercial approach and the provision of better customer service. The law will also create an autonomous utility that will provide institutional stability for improved water and sanitation service delivery.
Many hope these developments will increase trust and reduce the likelihood of conflict. “Strengthening institutions and clarifying sector operations under a transparent regulatory regime provide a solid foundation for good governance, improved service delivery performance, and stable operations,” Ms. Sobande said.
Water for Resilience
Water resource management impacts stability in urban and rural areas alike. In Kenya, disputes between pastoralists over scarce natural resources in drought prone rural northern areas sometimes turn violent. USAID works with pastoralists there to constructively and peacefully settle these disputes.
“Violent conflicts in pastoralist communities are often caused by unregulated competition over declining availability of pasture and water,” said USAID/Kenya Mission Director Karen Freeman. “Loss of life, destruction of property, internal displacements, and disruption of livelihoods are among the high costs of violent conflict associated with resource scarcity.”
The Feed the Future Resilience and Economic Growth in Arid Lands-Improving Resilience (REGAL-IR) project, which is implemented by USAID in partnership with African Development Solutions (ADESO), is addressing these issues by helping pastoralists there work together to diversify their livelihoods, prepare for climate change, improve natural resource management, and peacefully resolve disputes. Ms. Freeman said that REGAL-IR works to show pastoralists “that competition over common pool resources is normal and if channeled properly through peaceful mechanisms, can significantly mitigate conflict.”
It does so by encouraging cooperation in culturally relevant ways. The project revitalized the Borana dedha, a centuries-old customary governance system, which plans grazing systems and helps allocate natural resources. When disputes do arise, REGAL-IR staff employ conflict resolution mechanisms rooted in the pastoralists’ culture and history. “As facilitators, coaches, and mentors, REGAL-IR staff advise and inspire individuals, families, and communities to take command of their development, become more self-reliant, and break the cycle of dependency,” said Ms. Freeman.
This hands-on approach means project staff have faced the grim realities of conflict firsthand. “Banditry and insecurity have raised the costs of doing business. Activity staff cannot travel so freely in insecure areas. They have been twice ambushed at gunpoint recently, and now must move with costly and cumbersome armed escorts,” explained Ms. Freeman.
However, their efforts are paying off and pastoralists are increasingly working to collaboratively manage water resources and boost their livelihoods on their own. More than 20,000 community members have joined together to articulate their needs and shared goals through what the project calls the Participatory Learning, Planning, and Action process. Ms. Freeman said that through this process, pastoralists are “creating positive energy and momentum for change.”
With this newfound momentum, they are drafting Community Development Action Plans for sharing natural resources and working with neighboring communities to implement them. In addition, nearly 2,600 people have joined 86 self-help groups in which they work together to save money, increase livelihoods, and improve agricultural efficiency.
This institutionalized collaboration around peaceful water management will improve communities’ ability to face unanticipated stresses like natural disasters and economic shocks, increase their overall resilience, and reduce the likelihood of violent conflict. Locals are now eager to continue engaging with each other over these issues. Logetei Adir, a grazing elder from
Turkana, summed it up when he said, “We cannot keep organizing our grazing plans without engaging those of our neighbors.”
C. Zeilberger
For More Information
USAID Water & Conflict Toolkit
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