The chapter assesses the notion of local scale and decentralization that emanates from the IWRM principles. Evaluation of the benefits of decentralization was done through the political ecology lens that critically examines fairness and power struggles across spaces. Sanyati catchment was used to draw empirical evidence in light of the theoretical expectations of decentralization towards catchment water security. Qualitative approach was used to collect data. Interviews were the main sources of data collection. The findings showed that decentralization has failed to produce the desired results compared to what is assumed in the dominant narrative that highly esteems the decentralization management approach. The chapter showed that what brings results are not local scales and suggests that probably fair and transparent resource distribution and allocation at any scale may bring about water protection that does not trigger the tragedy of the commons.
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Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is popular in Zimbabwe for the establishment of catchments and sub-catchment councils (decentralization) and other water reforms (Mapedza et al. 2016; Conyers 2003). Decentralization has led to a process where power and institutions are taken to the local people. The concept of a local scale in decentralization emanated from the, Dublin principles which assume that any development agenda that is taken to the local scale inevitably yields desired results compared to activities spearheaded from exterior scales which are perceived to be rather distant (Purcell 2002). This was done with the assumption that conservation efforts would be fruitful, and this has been a dominant narrative that the Government of Zimbabwe adopted since the inception of IWRM in 1998. However, Brown and Purcell (2005) are of the notion that there is absolutely nothing inherent about local scale since scale is a social construct whose configurations can be changed from time to time. Scales always require a more explicit understanding of particular scalar conformations instead of generalisations. In preference to questioning the aspect of the effectiveness of scale from a theoretical and methodological perspective only, the study prototypes Sanyati catchment configurations to assess the results of the existing dominant narrative that assumes the efficacy of decentralization to catchments and sub-catchments. Sanyati catchment case was used to ground truth the dominant narratives related to human interaction and water resources, focusing on the pros and cons of the involvement of the local scale in water governance. This is especially more pronounced when channels of communication available prohibit or undermine networking in the scalar arrangements (Swyngedouw, 1997). However, many in political ecology have since identified this conception of geographical scale (Brown and Purcell, 2005; Green 2016) and are not comfortable with it, arguing that scale is just a social construct with no direct implications on the success of any project agenda (Mohan and Stokke, 2000; Herring, 2001; Myers, 2002). Nonetheless, the IWRM concepts of decentralization and local scale greatly influenced the Zimbabwean water management approach.
The question that prompted this study from a political ecology perspective is, if decentralization and local scale are a panacea to catchment water ills, why then do catchments continue to face a plethora of challenges years after the introduction of the highly esteemed IWRM principles (Manzungu, 2002), or is it time to outrightly change the scalar configurations. The political ecology of water management is seemingly well understood, and the dynamics are well articulated (Hellum and Derman, 2002). However, results in catchments seem to be in the contrary to what is anticipated from decentralization. The discourse of local scale has its own tenets and dominant narratives. There is a strong assumption that when decisions concerning resources are crafted by the local scale they yield socially and environmentally impartial resolutions (Bassett and Zueli, 2000). However, this paper seeks to establish whether the tenets of decentralization are applicable to Sanyati catchment and its sub-catchment councils. This brings about the spatial aspect as a pertinent field of enquiry because generalisation concerning local scale may be creating grey areas of untold successes or failures in the decentralization discourse due to different social constructs. This focuses on how the local scale is politicised and whether the outcomes are yielding intended outcomes or maybe there are struggles within the local scales themselves bearing in mind that scale has no permanent qualities (Swyngedouw 2004; McCarthy 2005; Paulson et al 2005; Smith, 1993), scale qualities are bound to change over time and through political power struggles and the existence of varying agendas in struggles. What might have worked a decade ago may not be used as a contemporary standard of measure.