Africa Steps Up Efforts to Promote Information Use in Decision Making
By Clever Mafuta

Africa’s quest for sustainable management and utilisation of environmental resources received a major boost when a recent consultative meeting agreed to broaden the mandate of the Programme on Environmental Information Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (EIS Africa Programme). The programme, which has since been turned into a not-for-profit Section 21 Company registered in South Africa, where it is hosted, will significantly improve state-of-the environment reporting by putting in place the necessary institutional and data infrastructure to support the process.

The EIS programme has over the past decade promoted greater use of harmonised geo-spatial data, and in so doing facilitated the strategic development and use of information in support of effective management of environmental resources for development. However, easy access to policy-relevant information remains a critical challenge in sub-Saharan Africa.

In his opening remarks, Dave MacDevette of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) highlighted the immense role played by environmental information systems (EIS) in supporting global state-of-the-environment (SOE) reporting processes such as the Global Environment Outlook. Similarly EIS activities play crucial roles in national and sub-regional SOE reporting, although currently such activities are not well developed in the sub-continent.

Major achievements of the EIS Programme in Africa include awareness creation through country case studies, the promotion of data harmonisation and standardisation, as well as facilitating data sharing.

Under the new arrangement, the EIS Africa Programme is set to become a pan-African non-governmental organisation made up of partnerships, with the goal of enhancing geographical information brokeraging, as well as providing support for policy research studies. Through the provision of basic datasets the EIS programme will have significant inputs in on-going national and sub-regional programmes such as land reform, food security, poverty alleviation, decentralisation and the implementation of global conventions at the local, national and sub-regional levels.

The SADC region has the longest sustained sub-regional EIS development in sub-Saharan Africa. According to Kennedy Masamvu, the Coordinator for the SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit (RRSU), formal EIS activities in the SADC region started in 1992. In 1995 two activities, namely the EIS Database Development and Networking, and the Training and Education programmes were launched. In addition, a SADC EIS Policy Framework document has been prepared and approved by the SADC Environment and Land Management Sector Technical Committee. The document is now awaiting approval by the SADC Council of Ministers. Furthermore, the SADC RRSU, working in collaboration with other partners, has developed a harmonised, small-scale topographic dataset for the entire SADC region.

The SADC EIS programme seeks to collect, process, exchange, store and present information in a format that is suitable for making policies, legislation and decisions. The EIS programme in the sub-region is slowly being intergrated in SOE reporting processes. Collaboration between UNEP, the World Conservation Union’s Regional Office for Southern Africa, the Musokotwane Environment Resource Centre for Southern Africa, SADC Environment and Land Management Sector, and SADC RRSU, will result in the creation of a meta-database to identify and track down data that is required for SoE reporting.

At the country level, most SADC members have made some efforts to initiate EIS programmes. For example, Zimbabwe is in the process of harmonising several disparate datasets on land resources, including complete coverage of forests and vegetation, while Malawi is implementing an EIS programme to assist in its land policy reform. Tanzania and South Africa have prepared an EIS strategy and a National Spatial Information Framework, respectively.

However, as with most of Africa, many SADC countries have weak economies and do not always give priority to the establishment of information processing systems, which demand substantial investments. The implementation of EIS EIS-related programmes is therefore, proceeding at varying speeds, with a lot of gaps in the availability, quality, coherence, standardisation and accessibility of data within and among member states.

Study Identifies Regional SOE Needs

By Tendayi Kureya

A recent study on state of the environment (SOE) reporting processes in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) carried out has identified five key issues pertaining to SOE processes in the region. The study was undertaken as part of the activities under NETCAB. The assessments were carried out by the Musokotwane Environment Resource Centre for Southern Africa (SARDC-IMERCSA) and The World Conservation Union Regional office for Southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA) between June 1999 and July 2000.

The study involved visits to six countries of the region during which one-day workshops involving key stakeholders on SOE reporting were convened. A questionnaire was used to collect information regarding the problems encountered in SOE processes and general environmental information dissemination. SOE reports produced at the national and regional level in the SADC region were also collected and analysed based on thsupporting legislation, objectives, target audience, process participation, workshops, meetings, contributors, organizational framework, indicators, content, and other supporting products. The analysis also considered the language used in SOE reports, report launch, distribution strategy and the influence the report has had on decision making.

The study noted that the region is at various stages of SOE reporting, characterised by the following six cross cutting characteristics:

• not all countries are practicing regular SOE reporting;
• SOE frameworks used are unclear;
• indicators and data used have many flaws;
• new technology is used minimally, but can generally improve the SOE process;
• the structure of overall reports needs improvements; and
• most reports do not reach their intended audience.

While it may be accepted that SOE reporting could be an effective tool for providing information for decision-making, some countries in the region are, or still have to produce their first SOE reports.  Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Seychelles, and Tanzania either still have to produce their first reports, or have their reports unavailable in the international public domain. Other countries such as Botswana and Namibia are in the processes of producing their reports. The rest have at least a report to their credit. The assessment revealed that countries of the region could ideally produce SOE reports periodically.

The analysis identified the pressure-state-response framework as the one predominantly used in the region. This method involves identifying states of environmental issues; pressures behind the observed states and trends; and responses to their impacts.  Some countries such as South Africa have applied the drivers-pressure-state-impact-response methodology by the book, while others have opted to use it only in principle. The result has been reports of varying quality and volume. Some reports such as the 1998 SOE report for Zimbabwe and the South African SOE reports on Internet, have applied extensive use of indicators although the issue of which indicators to use is obviously not resolved. The methodology issue spans across all practitioners, and it was suggested necessary to develop a regional guide to effective SOE reporting.

Data used in the SOE reports is characterised by many flaws. There is a general tendency to use data that which is available rather than that is needed. Most data is presented in raw form without further analysis in text to allow the average user to grasp the underlying information. Data and indicator problems encountered in the region include:

• outdated sources;
• data not in required format;
• indicators not presented well;
• indicators for SOE reporting developed with the help of external expertise and the databases developed were not being fully utilised or updated after the report was out;
• there is evidence of use of indicators that writers could find rather than what was needed;
• there is also little coordination across chapters suggesting that the chapters could have been written in isolation;

• occasionally, there is no mention of the set of indicators used in producing the reports.

While cartography has been employed, other techniques such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) could have added value to the overall quality of most products. In the cases where such advanced techniques are employed, there is apparent expertise external to the region involved, something that is not well in line with the concept of sustainability when such expertise is withdrawn. Some reports extensively use modern technology such as Internet, and result in state of the art processes that are easy to revisit and update. The assessment concluded that traditional thinking to SOE reporting should be complemented rather than substituted by modern technology.

Most reports could use more professional publications, the assessment also suggested. "While considerable effort is put to the writing process, there seems to be insufficient budgetary allocation for publishing the reports", commented Lovemore Sola, Head of Programme at IMERCSA, "Exceptions include the reports for South Africa, Mauritius and Zimbabwe."  The publication process should ideally be followed by a book launch and marketing strategy that ensures that the report reaches its intended audience.

Lovemore Sola, Tendayi Kureya, Munyaradzi Chenje based at IMERCSA, and Jacque Chenje, programme coordinator for the Environmental Communications Information Programme for IUCN ROSA carried out the country assessments which were conducted in Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

By Joshua Chigodora

Steps are being undertaken to develop an environmental thesaurus for use in library and documentation centres in southern Africa.  The move, being spearheaded by the Environmental Documentation and Resource Centre Network (EDRCN), is aimed at facilitating networking and at improving resource sharing among environmental library and documentation centres in the region. 

EDRCN emanated from an IUCN-ROSA organised roundtable seminar held in Windhoek, Namibia in December 1996, to establish a network of information resource centres among IUCN members and partners in southern Africa.  The seminar recognised the need for the establishment of an "effective environmental information network" that would serve the information needs of environmentalists, researchers, policy makers and the public, to enable them to make environmentally sound decisions.

Following the December meeting, another workshop was held in November 1997, again in Windhoek, where the establishment of the EDRCN was discussed and a steering committee formed, comprising of documentalists and/or information officers from Africa Resources Trust, IUCN-ROSA, SARDC-IMERCSA, and ZERO.  At this meeting the need for the development of a thesaurus as a tool for facilitating networking was reiterated.  The thesaurus would form the base for a common language for use in document processing and indexing both manually and electronically throughout the region.  It would facilitate better networking as all libraries would be using the same terminology.

Traditionally, collection development is a very important aspect of information provision services.  However, with the development of new technologies and abundance of information sources, it is no longer enough to have large collections of information sources, rather, emphasis is now on knowing where to obtain access to any required information in the right time and format.

To facilitate better information sharing and networking participating individuals and institutions should adopt a common language and employ similar standards.  While document processing techniques are fairly standard the world over, languages for document description and indexing are diverse depending on the need, purpose and geographical area.  

Documentalists have attempted to overcome the problem of language and style of description and indexing by developing thesauri for use in general situations, in specific subjects or disciplines or in certain geographical areas. 

Unfortunately, southern Africa has not yet compiled its own environmental thesaurus that fully meets the needs of information service providers in the region.   Calls for the development of such a tool have emerged from different fora in the region, among which are the SADC-Environment and Land Management Sector Environmental (ELMS) organised Information Exchange Network workshop held in Lesotho in 1995, and at subsequent IUCN regional meetings held in Windhoek in 1996 and 1997.

Thesauri offer mechanisms for the exchange of information and experiences at local, national, regional and international levels.  They range from general multidisciplinary, general subject, to special subject compendia.

Most conventional environmental thesauri in use in libraries and documentation centres in southern Africa originate from outside Africa and tend to be too general for use in the region.  These thesauri in most cases fail to capture the subject areas appropriate to the southern African environment.  For example, the INFOTERA thesaurus does note recognize SAVANNA, DAMBO and many others, as important keywords for document indexing.  Yet these are common terms in the region.

Librarians and documentalists are caught in a dilemma whether to use the terms anyway, or leave them out completely.  While including them may be useful at local, national or regional levels, there is a danger that information indexed thus may be rendered unavailable to an audience outside southern Africa.  Even within the region, as mentioned above, existing databases are indexed using thesauri from Europe.

As a subject, the environment is multidisciplinary by nature.  It covers a wide range of linkages to disciplines and as a result it would be very difficult, though not impossible, to construct a thesaurus containing every environmental term.  Efforts have been made at institutional level to develop thesauri that suit institutional requirements, but these have largely been inadequate especially for networking purposes.  Moreover, these in-house thesauri are only supplements to already inappropriate tools.

In southern Africa, technological changes in information services, libraries and the publishing industries have changed significantly over the years. This has made it possible for libraries and documentation centres to embark on open systems for wide distribution and access to information.  The demands for operating diverse information and library systems have made it essential that standards be developed to ensure quality.

It is generally recognised that society is undergoing a revolution where there is an explosion in the amount and exchange of information.  The revolution is taking place due to the development of information and communication technologies.  It is universally accepted that society is developing in this way in a global scale, and that action must be taken to prepare for the changes ahead as soon as possible especially in southern Africa.

The explosive growth of interest in the Internet and the worldwide web in the past two years in the region has created a digital extension of research libraries and documentation centres for certain kinds of materials.  Collections of texts, images and sounds exist in electronic form and may be accessible from the Internet.  Knowledge regarding the whereabouts and status of material is often passed on by word of mouth among members of a given community or within formal or informal networks.  For outsiders, however, much of this material is so difficult to locate that it is effectively unavailable.

A number of well-designed search engines like Alta Vista and Yahoo are now available that index every resource available on the web and maintain up-to-date databases of locations.  It has not yet been proved that indexes contain sufficiently rich resource descriptions, especially if the location databases are large and span many fields of study.  If these resources are to be discovered through a systematic search, they must be described by someone familiar with the language of the text.

As mentioned earlier, materials indexed using internationally unrecognised terminology are in many cases virtually unavailable. It is, therefore, imperative that steps be taken to develop a southern Africa thesaurus that will be publicised as a southern African initiative.

By Maria Mutama

The waters of the Zambezi Basin play an important environmental, economic and social role in the riparian states. According to the State of the Environment Report of the Zambezi Basin 2000, water facilitates many activities in the basin in industry, domestic use, hydropower generation, irrigation and transportation.

According to the report, economic development of the riparian countries is to a great extent dependent on the availability of water resources. Water is also the driving force in wetland ecosystems, playing a critical role in the biosphere. The ecological value of water and wetlands is found in the ecological functions that these systems play in the environment. 

The distribution of water resources in the basin is very uneven and is mainly influenced by rainfall and other environmental factors. The development of reservoirs also contributes to the uneven distribution of water. The bulk of the basin’s water resources are found in lakes such as Lake Malawi/ Nyasa, Lake Kariba and Cahora Bassa, and in the many rivers and streams. Groundwater is also an important source of water in the basin

Many wetlands in the Zambezi Basin posse unique attributes that cannot be described in terms of use, ecological and hydrological values, says the report. The aesthetic appeal and recreational potential of wetlands are not easy to quantify in financial terms, but cannot be ignored. The natural beauty, impressive scenery and large numbers and variety of wildlife, and good recreational fishing potential makes the Zambezi Basin wetlands popular tourist destinations and good earners of foreign revenue.  For example, the beauty of the internationally acclaimed natural wonder, the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi cannot be over emphasized.

According to the State of the Environment Zambezi Basin 2000, threats to the Basin wetlands include reduced flows caused by droughts and water abstractions, aquatic weed infestation, pesticides especially dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), infrastructure development such as dams, overexploitation of resources due to human pressure, uncontrolled fires, pollution and deforestation, among others. These lead to a number of ecological problems such as habitat change and species loss, and affect the socio-economic well-being of the peoples of the basin.

Since the well-being of the people of the basin suffers from mismanagement of wetland resources, it is important to note that, throughout the Zambezi Basin, there is a move towards greater involvement of communities in the management and conservation of water and wetland resources. In Malawi and Namibia, for example, successful water management arrangements have been put in place through the establishment of water point committees while in Mozambique, there are irrigation cooperatives.

Community based natural resources management (CBNRM) is gaining momentum in most basin countries, the report highlights. Community controlled hunting areas managed by Village Trust Committees in Botswana and community conservancies such as Salambala in Namibia, Administrative Management Design Programme for Game Management (ADMADE) in Zambia and the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) in Zimbabwe, have gained political acceptance and have placed resource ownership back in the hands of the communities that are most dependent on natural resources.

Public participation, awareness and empowerment is quite evident in wetland programmes and projects taking place in the basin, says the report. Under the Zambezi Basin Wetlands and Resource Utilisation Project facilitated by the World Conservation Union (IUCN ROSA), local communities are involved in the design and implementation of natural resources management programmes. Communities manage projects such as the Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust in Botswana, the Tchuma Tchato in Mozambique, the Integrated Rural Development and Conservation programme in East Caprivi in Namibia, and other programmes in the Kafue flats of Zambia.

There is an increasing trend in public participation in the water resources issues of the riparian states. As prescribed in the Dublin Principles, stakeholder participation is an important prerequisite to the success of many water programmes. Many countries in the basin have heeded this call and are seriously involving stakeholders in water resources planning and development. The policy to decentralise water management to the catchment level means that communities have to be made aware of the importance of water and empowered to carry the work at that level.

By Brian Ligomeka

The most obvious environmental effect of hosting over one million Mozambican refugees from mid-1980s up to early 1990s in Malawi is deforestation. Many hills in southern Malawi up to this day still bear the brunt of environmental damage enhanced by the presence of the refugees who relied on firewood as a source of fuel. The hills in the affected areas remain bare, despite the fact that the refugees were repatriated some seven years ago.

One of such hills is Nzongwe hill located in Chikwawa district close to the southern tip of Malawi.  "This naked, bare, nude, treeless, hill will never be the same again. It has lost all its natural glory," many people in the district used to say.

Poor women around the hill through an afforestation programme sponsored by the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) have proved wrong all the prophets of doom who preached that Nzongwe hill will no longer be the same.

The women were advised by MASAF to re-afforest the hill and in return get some cash allowances. Chief Makuwira of Chikwawa says the idea of involving women in the afforestation programme came about after he told senior administrative officials in the district about the Nzongwe state of affairs and the abject poverty confronting his subjects.

"I told officials from Chikwawa district assembly how degraded the hill was and how my subjects, especially female headed families, suffered in poverty," says Chief Makuwira. The district assembly in turn requested the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) to fund the afforestation
 project.
 
"My advisors and I chose Nzongwe Hill because we know the importance of having it afforestated. We also realised that it covers a large area and working on it would create abundant employment for the needy households, while at the same time we wanted to use the forest for keeping bees and as a source of firewood," explains the chief.

He says he identified poor women to work on the project. "Here a lot of families are headed by women because men go to work elsewhere. The problem is that men around here do not help their families financially and as such these families are worst hit by every pinch of our ailing economy," he said.
 
Mary Chikadza, one of the women in the area says the project has alleviated a number of problems she was facing in the past. "The project has been my source of income and it will continue to be so because when the trees we are planting grow and mature; we will harvest and sell them," she said. She also said one of her plans is to utilise part of the future forest for bee-keeping. 

Over 200 households are benefiting from the project in which 40 hectares are being planted with trees.  The project is divided into phases. So far about 37,000 seedlings have been planted. The seedlings are for both natural and exotic trees which were bred by forestry experts in the district.

Work on the project is usually done in the afternoon, two hours every day. The daily wage or the women working on the project is 30 U.S. cents.  Meagre as the wage is, women in the project are very happy about it. "To be honest we are happy with the money we receive. after all, this is the first time people at home are employed," said Enelisi Sitima adding that men have now started joining their bandwagon upon being lured by the 'remuneration' package offered.

According to a paper presented by Doris Katai Mwinga, an Environmental Law specialist, in a recent address to an IUCN advocacy training workshop held in Johannesburg, “advocacy has a cardinal input in participatory approaches in environmental law and policy development.” Participatory approaches are important in that they increase the probability of developing sound, acceptable decisions by enabling the decision maker to take into account the collective experience, knowledge, values and judgment of relevant participants. It also provides the public access to the decision making process and is an avenue for ensuring that decisions reflect the public interests and promote individual rights and democracy.

People in southern Africa are increasingly becoming vocal on important environmental matters, a development that has a positive bearing in directing decision-making. The art of advocacy has become central to decision making, with people being advised to speak up on matters affecting them. At the same time governments in the region are encouraging participatory approaches at all levels of decision-making.

Although people have always been asked to voice out their concerns in as far as law and policy-making are concerned, it is only now that many governments are becoming receptive to the idea. Since time immemorial, people have been encouraged to speak out their minds on anything that they are not happy with. Martin Luther-King, the famous Afro-American human rights activist used to say, “Don’t get angry. Get smart”.

Mwinga said that besides enhancing the consultative process and procedures in the development of environmental legislation and policy, advocacy also enhances awareness of environmental legislation, policies and issues.

The workshop observed that the art of advocacy alone does not promote participatory law and policy-making. In order to be effective, it was established that advocates should make use of the existing procedures and avenues for law and policy-making, including constitutional provisions, legislature, environmental impact assessments and international laws and treaties.

The constitution is the supreme law of all jurisdictions in southern Africa. It is, therefore, important to note if the constitution of one’s country has provisions for environmental management before undertaking any environmental advocacy work, said Mwinga.

Namibia’s constitution was the first in southern Africa to provide for the protection of the environment and natural resources. The constitution also provides for the office of the ombudsman who has power and duty to investigate, among others, complaints concerning the over-utilisation of living natural resources, the irrational exploitation of non-renewable natural resources, the degradation and destruction of ecosystems and the failure to protect the beauty and character of Namibia.

On the other hand, while the Zimbabwe constitution does not provide for a healthy environment, it gives a notice period of at least thirty days before it can be amended. Mwinga emphasised that such time can be used by advocates to influence legislators and the electorate, to bring about change.

Legislation other than the constitution follows a different procedure. In some jurisdictions there is no period between the publication of a bill and presentation to Parliament. While in others there are provisions, which compel the publication of a bill for a particular period before it is presented in parliament. This period allows for consultations and advocacy between the time of publication and the time for presentation to parliament said Mwinga.

Environmental impact assessments (EIA) ensure that activities that are likely to have significant adverse effects on the environment are evaluated before approval. Mwinga emphasised that such EIAs should involve inputs from members of the public and other concerned parties. Authority deciding approval has to take into consideration all observations made during the EIA proceedings and final decision must be made public.

The workshop observed that it is also important to consider advocacy in international law-making and their enforcement. However, enforcement of international laws may not be direct in many southern African countries where it is a requirement to enact appropriate legislation that take into account provisions for international treaties.

Mwinga compared the situation in South Africa and Namibia where the constitution of South Africa, states, “Any international agreement becomes law in the Republic when it is enacted into law by national legislation; but a self executing provision of an agreement that has been approved by parliament is law in the Republic unless it is inconsistent with the Constitution or an Act of Parliament.”

On the other hand, the constitution of Namibia says that unless otherwise stated in the constitution or in an Act of parliament, the general rules of public international law and international agreements are binding upon Namibia under the constitution and shall form part of the laws of Namibia.

Effective advocacy depends on the knowledge and understanding of environmental legislation and policy and their processes in any jurisdiction and on facilitation of exchange of publicly available information relevant to the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. The best advocates, therefore, are those who understand the law.