Working for water: More money for research

Abstract

The Working for Water programme had already received numerous awards and accolades when it was given a wake-up call a few years ago by one of the country’s top A-rated botanists. “The botanist told me that Working for Water was operating in a scientific vacuum,” said Christo Marais, who heads up the Scientific Services division. Speaking at the start of the programme’s inaugural research symposium, held at Kirstenbosch in Cape Town during August, Dr Marais reported that Working for Water had reacted to this constructive criticism by allocating a portion of its budget to research, recognising the need to expand the knowledge base on which management decisions were made. The core business of Working for Water has always been to control invasive alien plants, but it was thanks to its potential as a jobcreation initiative that it was launched in 1995, with a R25 million allocation of RDP poverty-relief funding.

Authors

Categories