Résumé
The new South African water law (NWA, 1998) provides a framework for the implementation of a largely decentralized and participatory approach to water resource management. New organisations (the Catchment management agencies - CMAs, and the Water users associations - WUAs) are being established to ensure that water allocation among users at the catchment level will follow the principles of economic efficiency, social equity, and environmental sustainability, as indicated in the National Water Resource Strategy (NWRS - DWAF, 2002). To achieve this, CMAs and WUAs will have to put in place processes of participatory decision-making and facilitate negotiation among water users having different socio-economic characteristics, unequal access to information and knowledge, and therefore a different capacity with regard to lobbying and negotiation. A role-playing game was developed to contribute to the process of building the capacity of groups of stakeholders to understand and design their own negotiation process, selecting decision-making criteria for their own catchment. The game uses as inputs, among others, annual production costs, prices of water licences, economic value of in-stream water, and generates consequent outputs in terms of financial impacts, environmental impacts (effects on the ecological reserve) and social impacts (equity in water supply) of different water allocation strategies. The paper describes the main features of the role-playing game, shows the outcomes of its first tests, and discusses the potential uses of the tool. (Résumé d'auteur)