The water warrior

Prof Bongani Ncube’s mission to put water back in the hands of the people

- Jamaine Krige

From the parched soil of rural Zimbabwe to the policy corridors of South Africa, Prof Bongani Ncube has never lost sight of one truth: water is life, and access to it must be just.

“I was born and raised in the village, and I am the daughter of smallholder farmers,” she reflects. “Working in water and agriculture was part of my upbringing.”

That upbringing now fuels a career at the forefront of the continent's water revolution, earning her the NSTF-WRC Award of the prestigious NSTF-South32 Awards.

As the SARChI Chair in Governance and Economics for Water and Sanitation Sector Institutions at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Ncube is leading a transdisciplinary research agenda that fuses engineering, economics, governance and grassroots knowledge. Her team includes 30 postgraduate students across three faculties and five South African universities — a growing community of practice working to transform water governance and economics from policy to practice.