Water for all: enhancing water resilience through relationships

This is the story of how partnering makes the water supply system in the Western Cape more resilient. The Western Cape water supply system provides water to over four million people across sectors and municipalities. Relationships are critical for effective decision-making and management of this system so the Economic Development Partnership supports the City of Cape Town to convene strategic engagements with water users and authorities. The purpose of these engagements is to galvanise joint action that creates a more resilient water system.

From drought to water resilience: an opportunity for partnering

In 2015 to 2018, the residents of the City of Cape Town (CoCT) endured a one-in-100-year drought. This context of water scarcity highlighted the absolute necessity of collaborating to avoid the dreaded ‘Day Zero’.

The aftermath of this shared experience was the creation of many initiatives to enhance the CoCT’s resilience to future droughts, one of which was a hydro-ecological study funded by the World Bank in 2022. This study specifically looked at understanding the economic impacts of not augmenting water resources within the Western Cape water supply system for the Western Cape province of South Africa.

One of the recommendations emanating from this study was the need to strengthen stakeholder engagement between water users and water authorities within the Western Cape water supply system. On the basis of this recommendation, the CoCT approached the EDP with a request to set up a bulk water user platform focused on improving resilience.

Preparations to establish the water user platform started in July 2022. The EDP approached the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) with the idea of creating a platform where bulk water users could engage.

The water user platform eventually first met in early 2023. The first meeting was convened to establish what the issues were within the water supply system, how the platform would work, and to decide what actions would be taken to address these.

Moving from meeting to acting

The water user platform was not immediately welcomed by all bulk water users and water authorities. The challenge the EDP team faced was how to shift stakeholders’ mindsets and build trust in an environment burdened by low-trust and disillusionment.

Then, at the first water user platform meeting, one stakeholder raised an issue that needed fixing before the winter: the clearing of the Voëlvlei canals.

Voëlvlei dam plays a key role in buffering the water supply in the Western Cape and it has experienced maintenance challenges with the canals that feed it. The canals are blocked with debris or are damaged and leak water, which reduces the amount of water captured in the dam and limits water availability.

Additionally, invasive alien plants (IAPs) wreak havoc on the infrastructure of the canals and, higher up in the catchment, also reduce overall water yield by consuming vast amounts of water. Left unchecked, these problems could reduce the system’s water yield by as much as 90 million cubic metres annually by 2045. The stakeholder described their challenges in reaching colleagues from the DWS to address the challenge of IAPS in the Voëlvlei canals.

Recognising this opportunity to demonstrate how partnering can lead to action, the EDP took action and organised a site visit. The team made sure that all key stakeholders were present, inc

luding DWS, CoCT and representatives from agriculture. water user platform In this neutral space, and on site, the water users were free to talk about shared solutions and roles in relation to the clearing of Voëlvlei. Stakeholders were able to experience the complexity of the challenge at hand on site.

After the joint site visit, all water user platform stakeholders experienced an increased sense of trust among one another. The problem facing the stakeholders was now clear, as was their shared goal to address it.

Discussions among the water user platform stakeholders after the site visit saw the DWS mobilise resources and clear canals of debris and manage invasive alien plant encroachment. These actions improved water flow to the Voëlvlei dam.

This initial success, while a small part of the broader maintenance needs in the area, improved operational conditions at a critical moment and laid the groundwork for an ongoing, trust-based partnership to ensure the effective operation of the broader WCWSS system. The water user platform also supports long-term planning by providing a platform where additional infrastructure issues can be raised and regular inspections scheduled.

Two key elements that contribute to the success of the platform are acknowledgement and accountability.

Acknowledgement

Acknowledging work that is already underway, the shared nature of the problem and the context around a process is a powerful tool for moving from discussions to collective action.

For example, stepping into the water supply system from outside that system, the EDP team were cognisant of the processes for stakeholder engagement that already existed. Rather than attempting to override these processes, the EDP team sought to complement these, building on work already started.

Acknowledgement allows stakeholders to shift from blaming institutions to finding solutions by affirming that while stakeholders have competing interests, they share a common purpose.

Acknowledging a shared problem and then inviting resources from others to take action to address the issue is also a key mechanism to unlocking collaborative action. Dr Notiswa Libala, the then-programme lead for water resilience at the EDP, described how this shift happened for stakeholders in the water user platform:

Accountability

The water user platform emphasises a collective approach to problem solving: stakeholders share the perspective that no single entity can address water issues alone, even if they are the custodian of specific matters.

The platform enhances this culture of accountability by enforcing guiding principles in meetings. These principles act as guardrails to ensure all participants feel respected and valued at all times, important ingredients for accountability to develop.

The role of the EDP team is to hold all stakeholders – irrespective of who they are – accountable to those co-created principles that set out the objectives for meeting and engaging. But what about when principles are flouted?

What becomes required is convened space where stakeholders can be held to mutually agreed boundaries required to achieve a common purpose. The co-created common purpose reminds stakeholders that they rely on each other to solve the complex problem before them all.

Resilience through collective action

The pivotal role of the water user platform in building resilience and ensuring long-term water security for the Western Cape is clear. By fostering collaboration across diverse stakeholders within the system, the platform aims to mitigate the economic risks associated with water scarcity.

The platform provides a space for stakeholders to take collective actions on issues including the management of invasive alien plants, water quality, flood and river management, and climate change impacts. Making progress on these issues contributes to addressing assurance of water supply. Together, this range of issues all contribute to long-term resilience of the system.

By maintaining shared resource management and open dialogue, the platform galvanises action, not just discussions, and aids stakeholders in driving progress. Trust among stakeholders is cultivated through these tangible actions.

The platform demonstrates that unlocking dialogue on critical and unaddressed challenges through neutral facilitation avoids blame and drives action. The EDP is not a water entity or a technical entity. As a collaborative intermediary that exists for public benefit the EDP is a partnering entity that unlocks solutions when technical and water entities get stuck.