Africa, Biodiversity, Development & Aid, Environment, Global Governance, Headlines, The Southern Africa Water Wire, Water & Sanitation

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Sharing the Okavango

Meekaeel Siphambili

GABORONE, Apr 23 2010 (IPS) - Each January, a giant pulse of water from heavy summer rains over the south of Angola enters the Okavango River system and begins a five-month journey through Namibia to a richly biodiverse swamp in Botswana’s Kalahari desert. The river is a rarity, scarcely disturbed by human development along its 1,100 kilometre length: shaping its future is the delicate task of the Okavango River Basin Commission.

On the Okavango in northern Botswana: development needs must be carefully balanced with conserving biodiversity in this river basin. Credit:  Wikicommons

On the Okavango in northern Botswana: development needs must be carefully balanced with conserving biodiversity in this river basin. Credit: Wikicommons

The Okavango Delta, which expands to three times its permanent size when the water arrives between June and August, is home to a tremendous concentration of wildlife.

There are just under 600,000 people living in the basin’s 323,000 square kilometre area, relying on its waters for small-scale agriculture and livestock, fishing, and household use. But aside from evaporation, a few sips drawn off to supply the Namibian town of Rundu and 1100 hectares of irrigation nearby, the water that falls in Angola at the turn of the year arrives in Botswana in mid-winter to recharge the Delta.

“Water usage in Angola and Namibia is minimal, 99.2 percent of the Okavango river water still reaches the delta in Botswana where it is used for tourism,” says Chaminda Rajapakse, of the Environmental Protection and Sustainable Management of the Okavango River Basin (GEF-EPSMO) project.

“[It has been] agreed any country that wants to develop their part of the basin have to go through consultation and studies be done to find out if the development will have any effect on the river flow or the ecosystem.”

But there is continuous, even growing, pressure on the river. When Namibia faced severe drought in the late 1990s, it considered drawing water off the Okavango to supply its capital, Windhoek, hundreds of kilometres away. Namibia also has a long-standing desire to build a hydroelectric dam on the river at Popa Falls, 50 kilometres upstream of the border with Botswana.


Further north, the consolidation of peace in Angola means a growing population around the river’s headwaters and the government in Luanda – flush with oil wealth – is turning its attention to long-delayed rural development.

But Botswana opposes any additional use of the water, arguing that it will disturb the fragile ecology of the Delta, leading to lost biodiversity and revenue from tourism.

Rajapakse’s project is to analyse the potential harmful impacts to the health of the river and draw up a strategic programme for joint management of the river basin’s water that will protect its diversity. He works closely with the Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM), which was set up in 1994 to, in its own words, “anticipate and reduce those unintended, unacceptable and often unnecessary impacts that occur due to uncoordinated resources development.”

OKACOM, one of five river basin commissions and joint water authorities that gathered in the Botswanan capital, Gaborone, for the Fourth Annual Regional Workshop on Strengthening River Basin Organisations on April 20-21, is charged with establishing the safe long-term yield of the Okavango basin, estimating demand on its water resources, investigating the feasibility of water infrastructure and recommend measures against pollution, and designing schemes to deal with short-term challenges like temporary droughts.

OKACOM executive secretary Ebenizario Chonguica said the Commission has overcome several obstacles as it mediates potential conflicts between the three countries over water use.

“The challenges are joint fact-finding. The three countries will find trends and opportunities through trans-boundary diagnostic analysis of the Okavango. There should then be a strategic action plan put in place to address the issues of all the three countries.”

Christmas Maheri works on the Regional Strategic Action Plan for the Water Divison of the Southern African Development Community. He says language – Angola’s documents are in Portuguese, the other two countries’ in English – is a simple but serious hindrance to information-sharing; as are the long delays in ratifying agreements that will permit a river basin commission to carry out its work.

In his case study of the Okavango Basin, Rajapakse presented the workshop an assessment that suggested the most advantageous development plan would focus on protection of the Delta’s biodiversity and valuable tourism associated with it.

At first glance, this would seem to unfairly restrict use of the water by Angola and Namibia, to the benefit of Botswana alone. But in the context of the benefit-sharing approach that the Gaborone workshop was built around, the idea would be to negotiate over shared water resources in terms of how to optimise and share benefits, rather than simply competing over allocation of limited water. This might include joint investments where all three countries would reap the rewards of productive investments at a basin rather than national level.

The concept is an ambitious one which would require real commitment to regional integration in order to exploit the comparative advantages of each segment of the river, but OKACOM’s Chonguica believes the Commission will be equal to the task.

“There have been shortcomings, but we have overcome them by means of complex working arrangements. People are now thinking on a trans-boundary scale. Thinking across borders is a major challenge and encouraging people to be transparent is not an overnight thing.”

 
Republish | | Print |


arthur conan doyle books