Analysing the role of politics in groundwater management – research in Ethiopia, Palestine and Yemen - Conflicts Over Natural Resources in the Global South - page 71

Analysing the role of politics in
groundwater management - research in
Ethiopia, Palestine andYemen
Ebel Smidt 1 ,Taye Alemayehu 2 ,Adel Al Weshali 3 , Karen Assaf 4 ,
Abdullah Babaqi 5 , D. Abdel Ghafour 6 , Rozemarijn ter Horst 7 ,
Frank van Steenbergen 8 , Kifle Woldearegay 9 & Omar Zayed 10
Abstract Ethiopia, Yemen and Palestine are two countries and a nascent state that
face different challenges concerning access to groundwater. Common problems range
from groundwater depletion caused by excessive pumping, a lack of information on
groundwater resources, and obstruction of access and the denial of water rights by
other parties. These challenges may appear unrelated at first glance, but they are in
fact linked by the importance of the political arena in removing barriers and furthering
development. This chapter presents the Groundwater in the Political Domain research
project and analyses the functioning of the 'political black box' with regard to ground-
water governance in these three country settings. The authors argue that the role of
politics is crucial, but differs also because of the nature of the state. Palestine and
Yemen can best be characterised as fragile states, while Ethiopia is a democratic state
in development with elements of an autocratic state. An enabling environment, trig-
gered by progress in politics, institutions, or the socio-economic domain, is suggested
to help actors develop themselves and the resource. Another lesson from the analysis
is to allow the narrative of the cases to take into account the interaction between the
resource, the different users and the researchers.
Keywords Groundwater, politics, black box, governance, conflict, cooperation,
institutions, entropy, Ethiopia, Palestine, Yemen.