Water Brings No Harm

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Matthew V. Bender. Water Brings No Harm

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Water Brings No Harm

SERIES EDITORS: JEAN ALLMAN, ALLEN ISAACMAN, AND DEREK R. PETERSON

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Mountain communities nonetheless became increasingly dependent on the new systems. In the highlands, an aging population found itself without the labor to maintain the mifongo or traverse long distances for water. In the foothills and lowlands, people had no alternative but to rely on government-built systems. By the 1970s, communities depended on water systems over which they had little control and in which they took little ownership. Local knowledge that was related to water quality and provision became less important in the upper areas and resented by those in the lower areas who viewed it as contrary to their interests. Specialists disappeared as elders passed away and children did not assume their roles. These changes reshaped how people made sense of the waterscape. Rather than one in which most people assumed an active role in management, it became one where people used resources passively.

By the late 1970s, Tanzania had fallen into steep economic decline. Facing economic collapse, the country abandoned Ujamaa and accepted a program of structural adjustment designed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Chapter 7 looks at how neoliberal economic reforms transformed water management. The Tanzanian government, with the aid of international development agencies, embraced Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). This called for two major changes: the devolution of control from the central government to basin-level authorities and local user associations, and the introduction of cost recovery to fund projects and maintenance. Communities on Kilimanjaro have responded in highly nuanced and varied ways. Most vehemently reject the notion that they should pay for water, seeing this as an affront to their cultural norms and their pocketbooks. They also generally realize that despite the devolution rhetoric, they are denied any real power over water. Whereas people in the highlands have been most resistant to new water user associations—seeing them as shadows of the real thing—people in lower areas are more accepting, partly out of necessity and also because they have less interest in maintaining traditional forms of management.

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