Water management in Ghana: between the idea and the implementation

Abstract

Four major paradigm shifts in water management include the shift from: government to governance, centralization to decentralization, water as a gift of God to water as an economic good, and sectoral to integrated water resource management. Are these paradigm shifts compatible with cultural/institutional practices in Ghana? Using theoretical and empirical arguments, this paper affirms that Ghana often adopts such paradigm shifts due to exogenous pressures but the absence of domestic ownership, inadequate resources, and institutional mismatches, often result in limited implementation. This paper recommends water governance which focuses more on prioritization, indigenizing exogenous ideas, and working within existing cultural practices.

Keywords:

• integrated water resources management
• water governance
• decentralization
• water policy
• Ghana

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of Netherlands Universities Foundation for International Cooperation's (NUFFIC) NPT (Netherlands Programme for the Institutional Strengthening of Post-secondary Education and Training Capacity) project entitled, ‘MA programme in governance and sustainable development’, project number NPT/GHA/041.

Notes

1. Daily Graphic, WRI predicts water deficit in 15 years, 18 November 2010 edition, No. 18385