Water Governance and Institutional Reform in South Africa: Lessons from the First 25 Years of the National Water Act

Abstract

The National Water Act of 1998 was a landmark piece of legislation that sought to reform South Africa's water governance from apartheid-era racial inequity to a system based on the public trust doctrine. On its 25th anniversary, this report assesses progress towards the Act’s transformation objectives, institutional development of catchment management agencies and the National Water Resource Infrastructure Agency, and key bottlenecks including water use licence processing backlogs, licensing-related corruption, and inadequate monitoring.

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