Indigenous Conflict Management and Contemporary Water Resource Governance in Rural Zimbabwe Evans Shoko Centre for African Studies – A.C. Jordan Chair in African Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa Abstract Indigenous conflict management has been a key feature of pre-and post-colonial African societies in man- aging varied community disputes related to natural resources. In Zimbabwe, the Dare, the traditional court works similarly. However, there have been few insights on the effectiveness of indigenous com- munity-based mechanisms in managing primary water conflicts. The paper argues that although there are widespread and varied water conflicts within the rural setting, the grassroots nature, combined with simple and clear procedures of the traditional court systems makes it a viable option in managing emergent primary water conflicts at the community level. There is a need to synchronise this indigenous community-based conflict management mechanism with the state-run judicial system. However, the operation of the indigenous conflict management mechanism within the framework of competitive African politics has made it vulnerable to political intrusions. Water governance, using traditional court systems would likely benefit from equal gender representation in the decision-making structures. Keywords conflict management, water governance, Dare, chiefs, traditional leaders Introduction Most rural communities in the developing world obtain their water from primary water sources, which include communal boreholes (groundwater), rivers, ponds, springs and dams (Adams, 2018; Miller et al., 2020; Woodhouse & Muller, 2017). These sources are subject to largely indigenous community- based water governance which are local administrative units determining allocation, rights, services and benefits. However, because of their communal nature and the congregation of people around these sources, conflicts are likely. In his seminal work on Conflict Transformation, Lederach (2015) Corresponding Author: Evans Shoko, Centre for African Studies – A.C. Jordan Chair in African Studies, University of Cape Town, Private Bag Rondebosch 7701, Rm 3.04, Third Floor, Oppenheimer Institute Building, Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa. Email: shokoevie@gmail.com Article Journal of Peacebuilding & Development 1‐14 © The Author(s) 2022 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/15423166221111692 journals.sagepub.com/home/jpd