A trip to Malawi

 While the issues I've explored in this blog are specific to South Africa, these themes can be seen repeated over and over again in Sub-Saharan Africa. A traumatic history of colonialism and oppression links the continent, presenting Africans with similar problems of water access in relation to social class. Today I want to learn about the relationships between water, colonialism and race in other African countries, and compare these struggles to those I've seen facing South Africa.

Malawi is one such country, sharing a recent history of British colonial rule. Both Malawi and South Africa are former British colonies, both becoming independent republics in the 1960s. Malawi struggled post-independence in similar ways to South Africa; both nations suffered under corrupt governments for many years, with diplomatic links between Malawi's government and the Apartheid government in South Africa (Britannica). In the 1990s, key institutional reforms occurred in both countries, and greater democracy and freedoms were granted. While their political histories in the 20th century closely mirror each other, there are major differences in how citizens of each experience the modern world.

South Africa is the second largest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa, while Malawi consistently ranks as one of the poorest countries in the world (World Bank). In addition, the demographic differences in each play a huge influence over how people, in particular black, low income people, have equitable access to resources. South Africa has a 10% white population, who historically (and persisting into the present) have hoarded a majority of the country's wealth and power from the black African majority. On the other hand, Malawi's population, while ethnically diverse, consists almost exclusively of black Africans descended from a diversity of tribal groups (Britannica). These ethnic makeups have altered how citizens access water; at the most basic level, South African water distribution is based firstly along racial lines, wherein white citizens are the 'haves' and black citizens are the 'have-nots'. This racial inequity is not a prominent issue in Malawi, but similar general trends show that "availability and distribution of water is uneven across space and class" (Mathur & Mulwafu).

As with in South African water politics, Malawian water provisioning has become a tool for politicians to use to their benefit. As authors Scanlon et al. explore in their article The role of social actors in water access in subsaharan Africa: evidence from Malawi and Zambia, water rights are incurably entrenched within the local political sphere. They explain that, "in some cases, politicians block development initiatives that have not been channelled through them, fearing that their political support may be under threat if they are not personally seen as the champions of those initiatives". They elaborate that politicians will favor placing water facilities in areas where they can be used as a tool to garner support, rather than prioritizing localities that need water the most. Both countries governments need to do a better job of prioritizing marginalized communities, or as authors Jegede and Shikwambane call it, a pro-poor approach. They argue that in the context of South Africa, affirmative action policies have the potential to achieve this, which would discriminate against previously advantaged communities in favor of empowering poorer communities who have historically not had access to water. Systems like this have been employed to varying degrees of success in Malawi. The country's tariff structure, which "recognizes water for the poor and penalizes large-scale consumers of water as a demand management strategy" could fall under the umbrella of pro-poor approaches, however being implemented in the political context, government sometimes intervenes in these tariffs, choosing not to enforce them as a way to garner votes in an upcoming election (Mathur & Mulwafu).

Scanlon et. al have argued for a coordinated and strategic approach to be taken with regard to water provisioning in Malawi. They detail the flaws in the current, decentralised approach, that suffers from lack of structure and reliance on private institutions with independent agendas. I contrast this to South Africa's water approach, which is heavily centralised under the NWA of 1998, and comes with its own unique set of challenges. Clearly, Malawi's decentralised and South Africa's centralised approaches have both done inadequate work in providing safe access to water. I find this to be a difficult paradox: if neither a decentralised nor a centralised approach is effective, then how are reformers supposed to fix these countrys' water policies? I haven't found the answer, besides the fact that each government is susceptible to bureaucratic injustices with roots in British colonialism, that require solutions much larger than a quick policy fix.

Resources:

https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1287

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wrr.2016.08.001

https://doi.org/10.3390/w13081104

https://www.britannica.com/place/Malawi/History

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/malawi/overview#1