by Clever Mafuta – SANF 05 no 70
Southern Africa recognises the role that water plays in the process of regional integration and has made notable progress in managing its water resources.
Efforts towards sustainable water management in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) can be traced back to the establishment of the SADC Water Sector in 1996.
The realisation of the need for a regional coordination mechanism for water resources came about because of recurrent droughts (particularly the 1991/92 and 1994/95), occasional flood disasters, increasing demand for water, growing competition over water, worsening pollution and increasing awareness among the countries of the region of the importance of integrated water resources development and management.
The SADC region moved another step towards achieving integration of the regional use and management of water resources by agreeing on the Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems in 1995. The protocol was revised in 2000.
The SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems is the first ever sector-specific legal instrument to be developed by SADC. It creates the over-arching framework for the management of the 15 shared river basins in the region.
Through the revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses, the region has sought to maximise on the attributes of shared water management while minimising on the potential for competition or conflict over resource scarcity.
The revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses came into force in 2003, and succeeds the 1995 Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems.
About 70 percent of southern Africa’s freshwater resources occur in the region’s 15 shared river basins.
Management of water resources is a key challenge for southern Africa given that water is a decisive economic development input factor, including its role in the generation of electricity.
The bulk of southern Africa’s energy supplies come from hydro-power, and with indications that the region will be short of electricity supplies by 2007 if no measures are put in place, integrated water resources management as promoted by the revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses becomes critical.
Both water and energy fall under the SADC Directorate of Infrastructure and Services, which also has responsibilities for transport, communications and meteorology services.
Despite shortages in potable water supplies, the region’s potential in generating hydropower is huge. For example, the Congo River has untapped potential for 40,000 mega watts, energy that is enough to power the whole of Africa with even surpluses to supply southern European countries of Italy and Spain. A project to tap the Congo’s energy potential is gaining political momentum under the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
The first Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems was based on the Helsinki Rules which tilt heavily towards the principle of territorial sovereignty of a watercourse state. According to these rules, an upstream state has the right to use water resources within its territory with no regard to any effects that this may have on the downstream state.
The adoption by the region, in April 1997, of the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses led to the revision of the 1995 protocol.
The main differences between the old and the revised protocols is that the latter places emphasis on watercourses as opposed to watercourse states, and calls for the establishment of river basin commissions, which have been established for the Zambezi, Limpopo, Okavango and Orange Senqu river basins.
The SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses is being implemented through the Regional Strategic Action Plan (RSAP) for integrated water resources management and development.
This decision to develop the RSAP represents a significant commitment towards meeting the challenge of providing adequate water service and supply in the region and protection of the environment. The RSAP reaffirms the importance of the region’s water resources and its influence on all aspects of the region’s economic and social performance.
The RSAP builds on ongoing initiatives such as ZACPLAN, adopted into the SADC programme in 1987, and the recommendations of the African Conference on Water Resources: Policy and Assessment of 1995, as well as the SADC-EU conference on the Management of Shared River Basins of 1997.
The RSAP has been integrated into the overall objectives of SADC, as well as into strategies developed by other sectors within the region including the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources directorate.
A number of projects developed from the RSAP are currently running, with the most recent to get funding being the Groundwater and Drought Management Project funded by the World Bank (through the Global Environment Fund) and Sida. (SARDC)
