Assessment of community participation and legal instruments in conflict managemet of trans-boundary water resources: a case study of Lake Jipe in Pangani river basin

Conflicts Management has been the activities of many research studies because of its importance to peaceful processes in many resources management. With increasing shared water conflicts, it is important to assess how community and legal instruments can be incorporated in handling water conflicts. The purposes of this research were to assess community participation and legal instruments necessary in conflict management of trans-boundary water resources. Data collection comprised unstructured and structured interviews, past reports, and 32 items questionnaire. A random sample of 125 people was chosen from 8 villages out of 12 villages around Lake Jipe for this study. The results show that only 38% of respondents have knowledge about Water Laws and less than 44% of the respondents understand issues in the National Water Policy. The scoring method indicates that 61% of respondents participate on water resources management through human labour. However, low income hinders them in monetary contributions. The legal assessments on National Water Acts, National Water Policies, Helsinki Rules (ILA, 1966), UN Convention (UN, 1997), and SADC Protocol (SADC, 1995) set basic procedures that can used (adopted) to settle disputes over international watercourses. Several recommendations include proposed legal and institutional Framework for effective water resources and conflict management have been given in this work. Finnaly, various conflict management approaches for the implementation of the some suggestion have been detailed in chapter three of this report.