Community based water resource management focuses on the use of collective actions to manage water resources to improve livelihood of the community. It aims to devolve authority of water management to the local community level by encouraging and empowering communities to adopt actions of their own to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner with some form of external supports be it local government support or foreign donor supports. The study assessed local level water development and management strategies that exist in rural communities and its effectiveness in complimenting water resources management. Data was collected through key informants, interviews, focus group meetings and observations in selected rural communities along the Black Volta in the Upper West region of Ghana, and organisations involved with water resources management. The study reveals that rural communities‘ only means of livelihood is to exploit the natural resources found within their domain. Rural communities use their long standing social and cultural practices to manage and develop water resources. Rural people respect and use their chiefs, local institutions and cultural beliefs in managing their natural environment and resources. They are aware of the negative consequences that their actions have on water resources and possible remedies required of them. Rural people are however not motivated to put in place and enforce the right measures for sustainable management of water resources when such measures conflict with their means to exploit the environment for survival. They therefore call for joint actions that seek to protect and preserve natural resources and which does not overlook the need for them to survive on the resources that they protect especially where
mandated institutions are faced with some challenges to effectively carry their functions. Communities are able to own and sustain any water developmental programme which incorporates their ideas and their physical contributions, right from =passive participation‘ where they are informed adequately about any water projects and programmes being undertaken in the community, to =self-mobilization‘ where communities do participate by taking initiatives independent of external institutions to change a system. Here they develop contacts with external institutions for resources and technical advice they need but retain control over how resources are used. The communities agree that a fuse of their traditional
institutions with the formal institutions will be a better idea to improve water management.