Water is essential not merely for its most basic use of sustaining life, but also for a wide range of economic and social development projects, including agriculture, industry, mining, power generation, and much more. Yet access to water, and the right to exploit, use, or buy and sell it, has been a contentious issue for years--with particular force recently and in Africa.
This book examines a wide range of issues related to the question of water and development, gathering experts in numerous fields to explore such topics as governance, solar distillation, gender, and many more. Using research methods that run the gamut from participant observation to the analysis of GIS data, the contributors continually look for ways to develop a participatory, sustainable approach to water that is rooted in its nature as a fundamentally public necessity.