A triangle of water needs: Namibia, Angola and Botswana
In the driest areas of Southern Africa water management is crucial: one example is the Okavango river basin that is shared by Angola, Namibia and Botswana. The river flows for 1,100 km, the total area of the catchment is 429,400 km² and 1.3 million people live in it.
The Okavango provides many benefits (ecosystem goods and services) such as reeds and thatching grass, firewood, fish, nutrients for flood recession farming, drinking water for wildlife, livestock and people. The annual inflow is 10 km3 of water, 95% of which comes from Angola: this country is then key player in the chess game on water rights and needs, especially considering that the resettlement of 6 million of refugees after the end of the civil war will increase Angolan water demands.
To address the problems of sharing water to meet competing if not conflicting needs and uses in 1994 a tripartite institution has been built: the Permanent Okavango Basin River Water Commission (OKACOM)*. The vision of the OKACOM partnership is the “Sustainable transboundary management of Okavango river basin resources for the benefits to its people”. It is formed by the Commission with its delegations from the three countries to decide policy and strategic direction and by the Okavango Basin Steering Committee (OBSC) with three task forces - institutional, hydrology and biodiversity. The Secretariat has been established in Maun (the delta main town) thanks to a US$ 2.2 million funding from the Swedish Government; the governmental organization Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) is also very active in the Okavango basin enriching this European cooperation example in the region.
The Okavango Delta Management Plan (ODMP) is also in place (coordinated by the Botswanan Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism) and is expected to contribute to the management of the entire river basin. It is being developed within the context of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands** and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Shared Water Courses: the challenge of the ODMP is to achieve balance between human and environmental water demands. Human health issues such as HIV/AIDS are also aimed to be tackled by empowering vulnerable groups such as women and girls and the projects like the “Every River has its People” increased the stakeholders’ understanding of the river basin, integrated other health management issues and developed a range of education materials, tools and programs.
The key factor of all these strategies and projects is the integrated approach to ecosystem health and human health via including biodiversity into livelihoods problems and, viceversa, considering human diseases in the wider framework of natural resources management. This can be successful eliminating boundaries between the three countries - Angola, Namibia and Botswana – thus recognizing that ecosystems cross them and have to be cautiously exploited for human needs sharing decisions at local and transnational levels. The desired aim is a sustainable coexistence of human populations and the large biodiversity they live upon (water and land are needed by many other species): by preserving resources through a good management of our part the extraordinary surprises of nature will be maintained for future generations.
Written by Luca Marazzi on behalf of Responding to Climate Change
*http://www.okacom.org |**http://www.ramsar.org
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