Water governance research in Africa: progress, challenges and an agenda for research and action

Africa has not received adequate attention in the growing number of studies on water governance. Using the Scopus database, 492 peer-reviewed articles published since 2000 on water governance across the continent were reviewed and informed the perspectives presented in this study. In addition to characterizing temporal and topical trends, our analysis highlights three dominant conceptual themes in existing studies – institutional, discursive and technical – and three crosscutting challenges of systemic, socio-environmental and research–policy divides. The study provides baseline information that can stimulate the development of scale-appropriate and policy-relevant research in the context of Africa’s unique water challenges.