ABSTRACT
Water reform can illustrate the multiplicity of laws and policies that come into play in natural resource management at the international, national and local levels. In the case of water reform, there are important tensions within and between international, national and local laws and policies which have to be reconciled. In this paper, we will focus on two dimensions of the water reform process in Zimbabwe. The first is the tension between water as a social good and as an economic good. We see this tension between the principle of having the market play the most important role in the management of water in opposition to providing adequate water to all citizens most succinctly stated as water as a human right. Secondly, we focus on some contrasts between the processes of water and land reform to examine the connections among international policies, national laws and customary laws and practices. We want to know if and how processes of globalization in natural resource management are being incorporated, transformed or resisted in contemporary Zimbabwe.1
