Prof Bongani Ncube

Prof Bongani Ncube is a water and agricultural scientist with more than 25 years of experience in research, academic and non-profit organisations. She holds a PhD in Production Ecology and Resource Conservation from Wageningen University, The Netherlands. She also holds an MSc in Water Resources Engineering and Management, and a BSc in Agriculture Honours in Soil Science, both from the University of Zimbabwe. After working in the government for 5 years as an ecologist, she joined the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2007, where her research was focused on smallholder farming systems. She then worked at the regional network, WaterNet, where she led a multidisciplinary Limpopo Basin Challenge Program on Water and Food research project for 3 years. She then worked for non-profits in the United Kingdom for another 3 years. Since 2013 she has been in South Africa, where she is pursuing research on water allocation, water governance, drought and climate change impacts on agriculture, indigenous knowledge, and water resource management. She is the Acting Director of the Centre for Water and Sanitation Research where she facilitates other interdisciplinary projects, including partnership building, generating research income, and postgraduate opportunities.
Since April 2022, she is leading the Research Chair in Governance and Economics of Water and Sanitation Sector Institutions, with broad objectives covering water security, governance, equity, and financial and economic viability of water sector institutions. As part of the implementation of the economics components of this work she is managing a network of formal supervisory and research partnerships with UKZN, UNISA, CIRAD, University of Limpopo and Stellenbosch University.
As chair she (with her partners) will be focusing on 6 main areas:
Objective 1: Developing governance processes for water institutions in South Africa – Strengthening processes for Irrigation Board transformation to Water User Associations. The work will also build on current Water Research Commission work on community-level water governance systems alongside multiple water use systems.
Objective 2: Deepen the understanding of the economics of the water and sanitation sector in relation to extreme events – Shortcomings of the current policies for management of water and sanitation under extreme events will be explored; including impacts of climate change, drought and other disasters on water and sanitation planning and management as experienced, framed and understood by water institutions and affected communities.
Objective 3: Explore the financing models and associated instruments for water service delivery in municipalities and the capacity of people to pay for services – Review of best-case water service delivery instruments and the capability of people to pay. Data collection for willingness to pay (WTP) and analysis under different socioeconomic circumstances.
Objective 4: Explore economic regulation of the water and sanitation sector – Regulation of different categories of users, pricing models, and documenting the main drivers of water insecurity in the selected urban areas with a focus on institutional models for regulation will be explored. The research will also explore sustainable water and sanitation technologies for adequate water conservation and management in urban areas, including integrated approaches for achieving sustainable water and sanitation services in informal and water-stressed areas.
Objective 5. Developing evidence and tools to improve equity of pricing and tariffing systems that are reflective of the life cycle cost of water and sanitation services – The work involves collecting evidence of successful tools to improve equity of pricing and tariffing systems from local and international examples. We will also explore the challenges of implementing equity of pricing and tariffing systems across South Africa.
Objective 6: Supporting data science, financial modelling, benchmarking processes, and practices to running water and sanitation public institutions as smart businesses – The work involves modelling financial management systems for large municipalities, and the development of benchmarks for best practices for managing running water and sanitation in South African cities, including exploring long-term investment models for inclusive and equitable water and sanitation services.