Why a regional approach to postgraduate water education makes sense – the WaterNet experience in Southern Africa

L. Jonker, P. Van der Zaag, B. Gumbo, J. Rockström, D. Love, and H. H. G. Savenije University of the Western Cape, Belville, South Africa UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands Water Resources section, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands Cap-Net UNDP, Pretoria, South Africa Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden WaterNet, Harare, Zimbabwe


Introduction
Established in 2000 in response to the call by water ministers of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to boost the training of water professionals (Savenije and Van der Zaag, 2000), WaterNet links 65 university departments and institutions in 15 countries in Southern and Eastern Africa that share an interest and expertise in water-related issues.Individually they do not command the broad field of water resources management.By pooling their expertise they are, however, able to cover the Introduction

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Full full range, from hydrology to aquatic ecology, and from water supply and sanitation technologies to economics and law (Wright et al., 2001).In the process the region moves away from concentrated expertise to distributed expertise; from competition between centres of excellence to cooperation, and from conformity to a diversity of ideas.As a network of institutions WaterNet has created a modality that offers a regional masters programme in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).
In addition to the regional masters programme, WaterNet also offers short professional courses, carries out multidisciplinary water research programmes, and organises annual regional water symposia (Jonker and Van der Zaag, 2010).Furthermore it is formally recognised by SADC and strongly linked to the Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWP-SA).
This paper pursues three objectives.Firstly it argues that it makes good sense to organise postgraduate education and research on water resources on a regional scale.This is because water has a transboundary dimension that poses delicate sharing questions, an approach that promotes a common understanding of what the real waterrelated issues are, results in future water specialists speaking a common (water) language, enhances mutual respect, and can thus be considered an investment in future peace ( Van der Zaag, 2009a).Secondly, it presents the WaterNet experience as an example that a regional approach can work and has an impact.Thirdly, it draws three generalised lessons from the WaterNet experience.The paper builds on two unpublished papers, Wright et al. (2001) and Jonker and Van der Zaag (2010).

Water resources management in Southern and Eastern Africa
Economic and social development requires reliable access to sufficient water sources of good quality.In regions where water availability is uneven both in time and in space, there is need to effectively manage the water resources.Whereas many people do not yet enjoy access to safe water supply and basic sanitation, this may worsen in the absence of concerted action, as water is becoming scarcer (as measured in per Introduction

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Full capita terms) and increasingly vulnerable due to pollution, extreme climatic variability and change.Managing water resources has become more critical than ever before.Towards the end of the previous millennium, the effective development and management of water resources in Southern and Eastern Africa was hampered by some institutional and legislative constraints, and insufficient financial and human capacity to implement programmes and activities that were consistent with the IWRM concept.Water management initiatives were typically split among different ministries.The fragmentation of responsibilities among sectoral ministries and administrative agencies hindered attempts to integrate water management activities.The management of water was often executed by government departments with little or no formal stakeholder participation.The cost of managing water was often coming from general government taxes because cost recovery was not aimed for.As budgets dwindled, maintenance of water infrastructure was disregarded.Legal instruments were often fragmented and some countries had water allocation systems that were intrinsically, or with the passage of time had become, inequitable.Monitoring systems were weak and constrained by insufficient human and technical capacity.Finally, ecological requirements were seldom considered (e.g., Swatuk, 2005).
To address the above challenges, several Southern and Eastern African countries have embarked on thorough water sector reforms.With the aim to better coordinate water management, legislation has been revised and administrative and institutional changes have been introduced.Also, an initiative started to address the resulting human and institutional capacity needs.

Capacity building needs for Integrated Water Resources Management
Ten years ago, Wright et al. (2001) argued that IWRM not only needed a favourable policy environment and institutional and legal setting, but also, essentially, required adequate understanding of the physical processes involved and of the multiplicity of Introduction

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Full societal water needs and interests, as well as effective decision-making that focuses not only the supply and allocation of water, but also on the demand side.
Those implementing this new mode of water management typically were thought to be teams of professionals trained in a mix of relevant disciplines.It was considered essential for decision-making processes that such teams would have good disciplinary expertise, and be able to organise effective communication among staff and between staff, stakeholders and policy-makers, and thus facilitate meaningful information exchange (Wright et al., 2001).
To address these requirements, albeit partially, it was proposed to invest in human resources through developing dedicated capacity building programmes.It was further acknowledged and emphasised that universities needed to continue to train specialists in relevant "conventional" water disciplines at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, while ensuring that the university curricula were kept up-to-date.
However, two constraints were identified.First, in Southern Africa the opportunities for postgraduate training in water-related disciplines were few, which jeopardised the expertise requirement.Second, a new type of water resource generalist was deemed necessary, for which in the year 2000 no suitable curriculum existed in Southern Africa.
This formed the basis for proposing a new post-graduate programme in Integrated Water Resources Management that would aspire to achieve two things: (1) through a broad foundation curriculum would expose disciplinary trained 1st degree holders to a wide spectrum of perspectives and to a common conceptual water language; (2) through a suitable specialisation phase and a thesis research requirements, offer students the possibility to either further deepen their specialist expertise or develop their generalist knowledge and skills.
The WaterNet initiative thus wished to produce sufficient well-trained specialists as well as a new type of generalists in water resources.The latter were viewed as the brokers within the water sector, able to establish links between specialists in sector departments.Such generalists were expected to constitute the "middle-ground" in integrated water resources development and management.They would, first, have a broad Introduction

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Full understanding of central concepts of the key disciplines involved, including hydrology, hydrogeology, chemistry and engineering, but also ecology, resource economics, law and management science, as well as disciplines relevant to the transboundary dimension of water resources, such as international relations (Wright et al., 2001).These generalists would be expected to translate these integrative concepts relevant and intelligible to other (disciplinary) players.Reference can be made to bridging concepts such as "green" and "blue" water, and "virtual" water.These generalists would be equipped with the necessary skills to facilitate decision-making processes.They would be proficient in team work, communication, negotiation and conflict management, while some would specialise in decision support systems (Wright et al., 2001).

The process towards the master degree programme in IWRM
It took four years to establish WaterNet and to develop the curriculum of the master degree programme in IWRM.The WaterNet concept was prompted by the SADC-EU conference on the Management of Shared River Basins held in Maseru, Lesotho, in May 1997, when ministers responsible for water of Southern Africa and Europe articulated the urgent need to "level the playing field" between riparian countries and thus to prioritise capacity building (Savenije and Van der Zaag, 2000).The WaterNet initiative was presented at a large number of conferences and fora in Southern Africa, including during the SADC Water Weeks that were held in 11 countries in 1999 in preparation of the Southern African Vision For Water, Life and Environment in the 21st Century.committee, a secretariat and a Trust fund (Wright et al., 2001).By 2012, the membership of WaterNet had grown to over 65 member institutions from 15 Southern and Eastern Africa countries.
In Victoria Falls it was also decided to create a masters in Integrated Water Resources Management.The two distinguishing features of this degree programme were that it had a modular structure, and that it was regional -the course modules being offered by different member institutions.Six specialisations were defined, which were informed by the needs in the region and the availability of expertise among the members.Syllabi for 22 modules were formulated, which were finalised in October 2001 at a workshop during the first WARFSA/WaterNet Symposium, held in Maputo, Mozambique.A scientific review committee critically assessed the master degree programme and the individual course modules.The committee confirmed and fine-tuned the structure of the programme, made some amendments to the syllabi, and drafted the general academic regulations (Wright et al., 2001).

Management
The WaterNet masters in Integrated Water Resources Management: is a general master degree programme that offers a broad range of courses relevant to Integrated Water Resources Management; the intake is thus not limited to graduates with an engineering or natural science background is a regional programme, where several WaterNet member institutions offer a limited number of course modules in the fields in which they have a comparative strength (Wright et al., 2001).
The degree comprises coursework component (12 months) and a research component (6 months).The coursework consists of in total 12 modules, plus a capstone module to mark the end of the coursework which is a multidisciplinary groupwork project Introduction

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Full Recently (2012) a seventh specialisation has been added: GIS and Earth observation, offered by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
The process of getting this regional programme approved academically required creativity, regional commitment and pragmatism.The modality eventually agreed on was that: two universities would award the master of IWRM degrees, namely the University of Dar es Salaam and the University of Zimbabwe, and both universities would approve identical curricula, including course modules that would not be taught on their own campuses, but elsewhere these two universities would offer the core modules as well as one specialisation each Introduction

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Full the other specialisations would be offered by other member universities with a comparative strength in that field the University of Dar es Salaam and the University of Zimbabwe would accredit and accept the courses offered and examined and credits awarded by the other universities.
The implementation of the WaterNet master programme in IWRM commenced at the two universities that hosted the core modules, the University of Dar es Salaam and the University of Zimbabwe, in October 2002 and February 2003, respectively.The other universities were subsequently encouraged to use the specialisation modules that they offered to the WaterNet programme as a basis for developing their fully fledged and home-grown master programme by adding foundational modules, much in the same way as the University of the Western Cape was combining their own postgraduate programme in IWRM with the WaterNet specialisation in Water and Society (Jonker, 2005).
The WaterNet board instituted a review of the masters programme in 2006.The review report was accepted by the AGM in 2009 and an extensive curriculum review process was started in February 2010.This has resulted in the inclusion of a seventh specialisation (GIS and Earth Observation), and some adjustments of the modular programme (Fig. 1).

Research and outreach
WaterNet does more than offering a joint and regional master programme.It is also involved in other activities that are closely linked and that strengthen each other.First, the modular masters in IWRM creates the opportunity to offer a comprehensive set of short professional courses.Second, it assists member institutions to develop interdisciplinary research programmes and activities that not only provide thesis research subjects and opportunities for students, but that also generate new findings that are fed Introduction

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Full back into the curricula.Third, the research outcomes are presented at symposia coorganized by the Water Research Fund of Southern Africa (WARFSA), a fund that has since folded, and the Global Water Partnership -Southern Africa (GWP-SA).These annual symposia provide a platform where water researchers, professionals and policy makers exchange ideas and set agendas.Fourth, for such a platform to make a difference it is essential that WaterNet is recognized regionally, i.e. by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and thus by all governments of the member states.This is indeed the case, which confirms the status of WaterNet as a legitimate regional network that offers an accredited regional master programme (Fig. 2).
The WaterNet masters programme in IWRM includes a research project of six months duration.There are thus significant opportunities for synergies with research programmes in which member institutions and staff are involved, and in which Water-Net has often played a facilitating and catalysing role.Two examples where WaterNet has played such a leading role are: - plinary experts (from hydrology to governance, from agronomy to ecology), maintain links with local agricultural research institutes, local water agencies and rural development NGOs.In both programmes the researchers work closely with farmers and practitioners, many experiments having been conducted on farmers' fields by and with the farmers, which helps to ensure that the research results are relevant to the livelihoods of rural communities.

Impact
The impact of the WaterNet programme has been significant and measurable.In this section we provide some data with respect to education, professional courses and capacity building programme, research, and finally the annual symposia.

Education
Between 2003, when the WaterNet master in IWRM programme was launched and 2011, in total 251 students from 18 African countries have graduated, of whom 99 (39 %) are female (Figs. 3 and 4).This also means that 251 master theses on water related topics were produced.In addition, other students who followed the courses of a WaterNet specialisation, such as at the Western Cape, graduated with another (postgraduate) degree.
Of the WaterNet alumni more than 90 % is still professionally active in the region.The majority is employed by government institutions and parastatals, followed by the private sector, including multinational companies, and universities; also many alumni are employed by local and international NGOs.Several graduates have pursued their academic education with PhD research, at a variety of universities in the region and beyond; most of them are still active in WaterNet, and related activities, such as the WaterNet alumni association.Introduction

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Professional courses and capacity building programmes
WaterNet has trained 737 water professionals (32 % women) through 36 professional short courses over the period 2002-2011 WaterNet is recognised by SADC and features in its Regional Strategic Action Plans on Integrated Water Resources Development and Management (RSAP2 and RSAP3).WaterNet is also responsible for the SADC-EAC (East African Community) capacity building programme on sustainable large water infrastructure and is in the process of negotiating the Zambezi Watercourse Commission's capacity building programme and support for the shared watercourses programme for the Save, Busi and Ruvuma basins.

Research
The research programmes in which WaterNet has played and continues to play a facilitating or leading roles, have provided good opportunities for students to conduct project and thesis research and for staff to produce research papers (Table 1).
Another key aspect of such multidisciplinary research programmes was that Water-Net started learning to build partnerships outside the university sector: with CG centres, government departments and NGOs.Many of these partnerships continue beyond the project period.This has also led to cross-fertilisation and benefits to university curricula, other research initiatives and so on.The fact that WaterNet as a network developed a wining concept note and proposal for the Limpopo PN17 partnership, and subsequently showed it could successfully manage such a big and complex project, facilitated that its member institutions got access to international research programs.As an example, WaterNet leads the Southern African component of the EC Framework Programme 7 project DEWFORA, which aims to improve drought early warning and forecasting throughout Africa.Introduction

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Symposia
Combining tertiary education with research has thus proven powerful.Many WaterNet graduates have contributed new insights into various aspects of hydrology, water engineering and management, some of which have been presented at the WaterNet/GWP-SA symposia held annually since 2000, and published each year in a special issue of the journal Physics and Chemistry of the Earth.By the end of 2011 ten special issues had been published, containing more than 420 research papers (Fig. 5).
Importantly, these papers are frequently being cited (Tables 2 and 3).Of all papers cited on "water management" and "Africa", nearly a quarter is WaterNet papers.For hydrology this figure is lower (nearly 10 %), but still significant (Table 3).It should be realised that without WaterNet some of these papers would never have been published and could therefore never have been part of the global body of knowledge.In addition, these research papers address real life issues that are of great concern for Southern Africa, and a significant number address issues related to the Millennium Development Goals (Table 4).

Conclusion
The WaterNet network started as a project in 1999.It has evolved into an independent partnership organization.The WaterNet Trust oversees, the secretariat coordinates and most activities are delivered by WaterNet members and partners.It is well embedded institutionally.Starting as a project recognised by SADC, and based on what it has achieved during the last ten years, WaterNet is expected to become a SADC Subsidiary Institution in 2012.
Lesson 1: For a regional capacity building network to be effective, it must have a legitimate ownership structure and a clear mandate.
Connecting institutions within a region makes sense because they can pool their resources, which is especially important for the smaller countries.Knowledge capacities Introduction

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Full can be spread and shared, which contributes to greater equity and is more cost effective.In addition, adopting a regional approach makes sense because water has a transboundary dimension.The fact that students from different countries sit in the same class and learn the same concepts enhances mutual respect and understanding; and that they move around in the region gives them a regional perspective ( Van der Zaag et al., 2009;Van der Zaag, 2009b).This will hopefully encourage future cooperation on water, and may be considered a prudent investment in future cooperation, peace and stability.
Lesson 2: Organising water-related training opportunities at a regional and transboundary scale makes sense -not only because knowledge resources are scattered, but also because the topic -water -has a regional and transboundary scope.
WaterNet has made a first significant step towards the creation of a knowledge community that may be characterised by a strong connectivity, the sharing of resources and distributed access to knowledge (Van der Zaag, 2009a).These are the ingredients for this community to frame, reflect on, and define its own problems and find novel ways to resolve them -and hence to learn and grow.The sharing of knowledge is a key success factor, as is the keenness of academics to present papers at symposia.At first many lecturers hesitated to write papers because there were more urgent issues to attend to, but this has changed over time.Now the symposia receive over 150 abstracts each year.Although university salaries may not have improved much, having an abstract in the conference proceedings or a paper in an international peer-reviewed journal, is now perceived of great value (Van der Zaag et al., 2009;Van der Zaag, 2009a).
Lesson 3: Jointly developing educational programmes by sharing expertise and resources requires intense intellectual management and sufficient financial means.
Finally, it should be observed that without the trust and long-term commitment from donor organisations that appreciate and acknowledge the value and benefit of knowledge sharing, the WaterNet experience could never have evolved from an innovative experiment into a recognised regional institution with a tangible impact.Introduction

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Full  p. 19, 3rd International Forum on Water andFood, November, Tshwane, South Africa, 14-17 November 2011, 2011. Love, D., Twomlow, S., Mupangwa, W., Van der Zaag, P., andGumbo, B.:    Full  Full  Full Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | WaterNet was subsequently endorsed by SADC and acknowledged by the Global Water Partnership.A large number (44) of institutions (university departments, training and research institutes involved in different aspects of water) were invited to express their interest.Eighteen institutions responded positively.WaterNet was formally founded during a workshop held in March 2000 in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, when the 18 founding member institutions agreed that WaterNet would be a membership organisation, operating through an annual general meeting, a steering Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | on which students jointly work for 4 weeks.The first eight modules are foundational, which are offered at the University of Dar es Salaam and the University of Zimbabwe.Thereafter students follow four modules belonging to one of the six (now: seven) specialisations of their choice, and finally the capstone groupwork project, again at the university where the students started.The six specialisations are: -Hydrology (University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) -Water resources management (University of Zimbabwe) -Water and land (University of Botswana) -Water and environment (University of Malawi) -Water supply and sanitation (Polytechnic of Namibia) -Water and society (University of the Western Cape, South Africa).
Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | "Integrated Water Resources Management for Improved Rural Livelihoods in the Limpopo River Basin" (Limpopo PN17) one of the basin projects of the Challenge Programme on Water for Food which ran during 2005 through 2010 and which was CGIAR funded.See Supplement, and e.g.Love et al. (2006).WaterNet is now involved in a successor project in the Limpopo Basin (Beukman et al., 2011; Kileshye-Onema et al., 2011) -"Smallholder System Innovations in Integrated Watershed Management project in the Pangani Basin (Tanzania) and Thukela Basin (South Africa)" (SSI).This multidisciplinary programme ran from 2004 through 2010, was funded by Swedish (Sida) and Dutch (WOTRO and DGIS) sources.See Rockstr öm et al. (2004), Bhatt et al. (2006) and Bossio et al. (2011).Currently a smaller successor project is still on-going.In these and other research programmes throughout SADC several WaterNet member institutions are the main implementers.Both projects involve many different disci-Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Ncube, B., Dimes, J., Twomlow, S., Mupangwa, W., and Giller, K.: Raising the productivity of smallholder farms under semi-arid conditions by use of small doses of manure and nitrogen: a case of participatory research, Nutr.Cycl.Agroecosys., 77, 53-67, 2007.Ncube, B., Magombeyi, M., Munguambe, P., Mupangwa, W., and Love, D.: Methodologies and case studies for investigating upstream-downstream interactions of rainwater water harvesting in the Limpopo Basin, in: Humphreys, L. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Increasing the Productivity and Sustainability of Rainfed Cropping Systems of Poor, Smallholder Farmers, Tamale, Ghana, 22-25 September 2008, The CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, Colombo, 209-221, 2009.Ncube, B., Manzungu, E., Love, D., Magombeyi, M., Gumbo, B., and Lupankwa, K.: The Challenge of Integrated Water Resource Management for improved rural livelihoods: managing risk, mitigating drought and improving water productivity in the Water Scarce Limpopo Basin, CPWF Project Number 17: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food Project Report se-Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper |

Figure 5 :Fig. 5 .
Figure 5: Symposium papers and posters presented at the annual WaterNet Symposia, and the number of papers published in the annual special issue of Physics and Chemistry of the Earth Fig. 5. Symposium papers and posters presented at the annual WaterNet Symposia, and the number of papers published in the annual special issue of Physics and Chemistry of the Earth.

Table 1 .
Output of two large WaterNet affiliated multidisciplinary research projects.

Table 2 .
Citations of articles published in the WaterNet/WARFSA Special issues of Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 2002-2011.Based on Scopus (http://www.scopus.com),consulted January 2012.
a The special issue is published around October each year.Introduction

Table 3 .
The articles published in the WaterNet special issues of Physics and Chemistry of theEarth (2002Earth ( -2010) )represent an significant share of all scientific papers on water-related issues in Africa.Based on Scopus (http://www.scopus.com),consulted January 2012.
"water supply" AND "Africa" in title, keywords and abstract no.