South Africa has adopted an ambitious new water legislation that promotes equity, sustainability, representativity and economic performance through water management decentralization, new local and regional management institutions, water users' licensing, and the possible emergence of water...

The paper discusses the link between local governance and rural development in democratic South Africa. It underlines several issues and challenges facing the government's willingness to position local municipalities as the key providers and promoters of development in rural areas. The paper...

This paper presents briefly the principles and procedure of typology schemes, which aim at describing and representing the local diversity of rural households, through the analysis of their modes of operation, strategies and prospects, activities and livelihoods' systems. This approach departs...

This paper briefly reviews the situation of smallholding irrigation schemes SIS- in previously disadvantaged rural areas of South Africa. It then analyses the implication of the new National Water Act of 1998 on those schemes, with regard to the IMT process. An analysis of water rights related...

Government smallholder irrigation schemes were developed in former homeland areas of South Africa during the apartheid era. Although experiencing serious financial, technical, and institutional problems, most of them are now earmarked for rehabilitation and transfer to water users' associations....

Natural resource degradation and water scarcity are a global concern, which typically threatens the sustainability of smallholder farmers' livelihoods in semi-arid developing areas. As part of research efforts, a number of water-conservation technologies (WCT) have been developed, yet with low...