Rethinking the politics of transboundary water management

The case of the Zambezi river basin

Abstract

This article challenges the prevailing ‘problem-solving’ discourse around transboundary water
management, according to which river basins are largely taken as a ‘given’ ecological spaces
and where the main challenge is to find environmentally sustainable ‘solutions’ to a number
of specific ‘problems’ through rational, functional-technocratic or even scientific policies and
institutions. Without rejecting the normative attractiveness of ecologically sustainable and
basinwide approaches, this article pays particular attention to the continued relevance of politics,
power and national sovereignty. Such political perspective gives rise to a number of general but
often overlooked policy issues, two of which are focused upon in this article. The first is the
challenge to reconcile national benefits and interests with the common good and basin-wide
approaches. The second is related to whether transboundary waters are best governed through
specialized and functional river basin organizations (RBOs) or through more multipurpose regional
organizations that have a more distinct political leverage?