Institute of Development Studies

Biography

Thesis: Global Environmental Policy Processes and Local Livelihoods: How the internationalisation of resources shapes access to and control over river-based resources in the Lower Okavango Basin, north-western Botswana

Phemo Kgomotso has a BA in Social Sciences (Political Science and Public Administration) and an MPhil in Integrated Water Resources Management from the University of Botswana and the University of the Western Cape, South Africa respectively. Prior to joining IDS she worked for a USAID-funded project on Integrated River basin Management (IRBM) with the governments of Botswana, Namibia and Angola to support the institutional development for the Okavango River Basin Commission (OKACOM) in order to facilitate cooperative governance of the Okavango River, shared by the three countries. Her DPhil research looks at the role of global policies and policy processes for management of wetland systems (Okavango Delta in this case) and how these shape changes in national policies for management of such resources/systems, and what the outcomes are for livelihoods dependent on such wetland resources. She's particularly interested in the way policies and social relations at the resources use and management levels shape access to and control over resources for different actors in a particular setting. The questions she seeks to answer through her work are, among others, ‘who gains what from what policies and management processes' and ‘what kind of policies (often devised without the participation of resource users, and backed by science and funding from global actors or those far from the resource) and the processes they take, give birth to what kind of outcomes for local people's access to and control over environmental goods and services', and ‘what human-environment relations arise from such processes?'.

Thematic Expertise

Environment; Livelihoods; Water and Sanitation.