This research paper investigates the water conflict management approaches of the Anuak indigenous people in Gambella, Ethiopia. The paper poses the question whether indigenous approaches to water conflict management provide some effective mechanisms that help to resolve conflict? If so, how? In order to provide answers to the research question, the paper goes in depth and investigates: First, how the Anuak indigenous people manage their water resources. Second, how they resolve conflict arising from the management of shared water resources. Third, how they assess the effectiveness of those water conflict management process? And, finally, using their effective indigenous methods of conflict management mechanisms, how can they address conflict arising from the expansion of large-scale agricultural investment in the Gambella Regional State?
The aim of this research is to see whether it might be possible to use the Anuak indigenous conflict management approaches to resolve conflict arising from the management of shared resources. And if that is the case, what the process will look like. It presents a process how to use those traditional conflict management mechanisms to solve conflicts associated with large-scale agricultural investments in the region.
This research was completed in fulfillment of Tsion Woge's Master Degree. Read more about her research in her thesis titled: Indigenous Approaches to Water Conflict Management: the Anuak and their Approaches to Water Conflict Management, which can be accessed through OSU's Scholar's Archive.
