Blog 3: Hydropolitical conflict in the Pangani Basin, Tanzania

The Pangani River Basin (PRB) covers an area of about 43, 650km2, mostly in Tanzania with approximately 5% in Kenya (IUCN, 2003). For its 3.7 million Tanzanian inhabitants its water and arable land is important and the conflicts surrounding the supply, demand and use of the basin itself are numerous and multifaceted in nature. The number of players and those with stakes or vested interest in the basin's resources are high, making the coordination and ability to please everyone extremely tenacious.

Figure 1 - Map of the Pangani River Basin

The majority of many hydro political water conflicts are based around the concept of scale, whereby the scale and size of those water players involved determines the power and tract that they hold overall. In this case, conflict of scale is prevalent due to the presence of industrial interests and local and small scale interests. Industrial interests include hydropower supplied by the Tanganyika Electric Supply Company (TANESCO), who own hydroelectric power stations along the Pangani River (ECSP). When the first ever river basin authority in Tanzania was established in 1991 under the Water Rights Act, small scale irrigators complained that these rights were erroneously introduced to protect the power generating plants. They felt that either they didn't get their share of water or that they got too little, too late. On the other hand, the large scale providers lamented that they didn't get enough water to produce power or food because the small farmers withdrew too much water and returned very little to the river systems (IUCN, 2003). This case of conflict of scale, as most cases of hydro political conflict do, roots back to water supply not meeting demand (Gleick, 2006). This has been exacerbated by the scale of the conflict, whereby the players who hold less importance to authorities, both politically and financially have been sidelined in favour of the big, money making and nationally important industries.

Moreover, conflict has also arisen over the use of water in the basin and the surrounding land, between local players such as farmers and pastoralists. Pastoralists aim to use the water to hydrate their herds and irrigate the land for their cattle, whilst the farmers need the water in order to grow their crops (IUCN, 2003). There are several examples of this, such as in 2011 in Mbuguni village, Tanzania when four farmers were hacked to death by angry Maasai morans (warriors) as they tried to stop a group of cattle from trampling on their maize seedlings. Physical conflict also occurred in August 2013, when a scuffle involving farmers and pastoralists ensued when twenty four herders attempted to take over the village's central water source in order to feed their animals (Makoye, 2013). The differing cultural and socioeconomic values that are placed on water can often be wide ranging like this, even on a local scale whereby the different needs and requirements for water led to physical clashes and even mortalities. Such an example demonstrates the gravity of water conflict and that it is not always large scale conflict, but that water is of intrinsic value to everyone on earth.

Figure 2- Showing how the pastoralists use the Pangani River

Non violent conflict has also occurred at a bureaucratic and administrative level, that has involved the Pangani Basin Water Office (PBWO) and the involvement of Kenya in transnational difficulties. Natural resources of this kind are normally controlled by the central and regional governments in Tanzania, but due to the size and complexity of the Pangani River Basin, control has been devolved to the PBWO in order to provide a basin-wide approach to the management of its water resources (IUCN, 2003). This has complicated the lines of authority between the management of the resource and the management providers, making them ambiguous due to the irregularity of this form of administration. As a result, players and those with vested interests in the resource have been affected by inadequate policies, insufficient funding and a lack of management integration between players on different scales. This lack of bureaucratic proficiency is also exemplified by the fact that Tanzania (where 95% of the basin is located) has failed to create a mechanism between themselves and Kenya to coordinate their management of the PRB (ibid). This has led to much inefficiency and mismanagement of the resource on the Kenyan side, to the dismay of those in Tanzania due to their lack of guidance and knowledge of a system that would regulate the water use equally and fairly in both countries.

Therefore, the multifaceted and conflictual nature of the water in the Pangani Basin in Tanzania can be attributed to the complexities that are the number of scales and players involved in the process. Conflicting interests between large scale and small scale players often hold much gravity due to traditionally the interests of large scale, industrial and financially important players being favoured by authorities over those of small scale players. This is the case in the PRB and due to the lack of administrative competency has remained unresolved for much time.