The role of stakeholder engagement in sustainable water resource management in South Africa

The effort to promote participation in decision and policy making, as well as programmes in water management is designed to give everyone who has a stake an opportunity to express an opinion or a preference. Although stakeholder engagements are welcomed initiatives, which lead to public participation, they are often embraced in ideological strife and political propaganda. Nevertheless, stakeholder engagement and participation are prerequisites for any innovative sustainable system of water resource management in post‐independence South Africa. Additionally, stakeholder engagement is an essential component of reforms and a bedrock in developing comprehensive pieces of legislation and policies for sustainable water resource management. It has been a legal requirement for adopting environmental legislation, such as the National Environmental Management Act of 1998, the 1996 Constitution, the National Water Act and the legal instrument for its implementation— the National Water Resource Strategy. In spite of these legislative requirements, the country is yet to realize an inclusive and practical way to engage stakeholders in the water management at the local level. This paper explores the structural and systematic constraints that hinder effective participation of stakeholders in water management. A purposive sampling technique to survey 60 participants from the water sector is used in the study. The findings identified lack of community empowerment and capacity building, inconsistencies in regard to roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, and apathy towards public engagements as fundamental barriers to their effective participation. It is observed that unless efforts are made to enable marginal voices to be raised and heard, claims to inclusiveness and transformation in the water sector will remain only a theory.