Land Use Policy 24 (2007) 664–673 Livelihood rights perspective on water reform: Reflections on rural Zimbabwe Bill Derman a,Ã , Anne Hellum b a Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), Norwegian University of Life Sciences, PO Box 5003, 1432 A ˚ s, Norway b Department of Public and International Law, University of Oslo, PO Box 6706, St Olavsplass, 0130 Oslo, Norway Received 8 August 2005; accepted 20 April 2006 Abstract The right to water has been adopted as a human right in General Comment 15 by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It provides a new framework for law and policy supplanting the Dublin Principles that have too often been understood in the African context to mean water with the ‘right’ price. Does a human rights approach to water, especially in rural contexts, speak to the multiple ways in which men and women share and manage water? How are water tenure and land tenure linked in Zimbabwe’s rural areas? We examine if and how local norms and practices include water within a broader right to livelihood. Substantial field research in Zimbabwe including ours demonstrates the existence of a right to water and livelihood, which can be responsive to gender and poverty. We suggest the incorporation of local norms and practices within water management laws and policies at regional, national and local levels. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Human rights; Property rights; Gender; Livelihood; Water; Zimbabwe Introduction Water reform processes sweeping across Africa pose multiple challenges to current local water management norms and practices. Water reform processes including those in Zimbabwe have rested upon compulsory licensing and registration of water users and only those who actually receive official permits or licenses have secure access, according to law, to water. The general rationale rests upon notions of growing water scarcity (Mehta, 2000), growing conflicts between categories of users and the need for national integrated water management to ensure that the environment is included as a water user. The process of water reform to be described below contrasts with the principle that water forms part of a broad ‘right to life’ that underlies rural livelihoods in Zimbabwe. In this paper, we examine the conceptualizations of property rights that underlie water reform and how they dramatically contrast with those found at local levels in Zimbabwe. In addition, Zimbabwe exemplifies the current set of disconnects between land and water reform even though at the local level land and water are integrated. 1 The previous global consensus around the Dublin Principles (see below) for managing water with its emphasis upon water as an economic good seems to be receding in face of a growing movement toward recognizing a human right to water. The Millennium Development Goal aimed at halving the number of people without clean drinking water emphasizes the critical importance of clean water and a rights-based approach. The World Bank continues largely to ignore the right to water in its water strategy documents and continues to be criticized for its emphasis upon large dams, water markets, and an increased reliance upon the private sector (e.g., Hoering and Schneider, 2004; Hoering, 2005; Bosshard, 2003). Despite some considera- tion of the significance of water as a human right (Salman and McInerney-Lankford, 2004), the Bank has come down ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol 0264-8377/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2006.04.005 Ã Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: bill.derman@umb.no (B. Derman), anne.hellum@jus.uio.no (A. Hellum). 1 Steven Hodgson (2004) has a clear analysis of the need for greater legal and rights consideration of the land and water interface.