SOUTHERN AFRICA-WATER: Conflict Looms As Rivers Dry

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NYANGA, ZIMBABWE, Nov 20 1995 (IPS) - Agreement now among Southern African countries to share water in the sub-region could avoid the prospect of conflict over dwindling water resources in the future, experts warn.

“As good neighbours, we should sit down and find ways to share water,” said Cephas Msipa, Minister in the President’s office in Zimbabwe, “If not we shall fight over it.”

There is less and less water to go round in the 11-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) area as water sources dry up due to population and development pressures and changing weather patterns.

Water demand in the region is projected to rise by almost 3 percent annually until at least the year 2020. The situation is especially serious in arid Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, whose fresh water supplies will not be able to meet demand within 30 years, the UN Development Programme predicts.

This is likely to push SADC members to source water from rivers shared with other states. For instance, Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe all lie on the Zambezi, the region’s largest river.

Other regional states share the rivers Orange, Limpopo, Nkomati, Cunene, Save and Okavango.

“All in all, 70 percent of water resources in the region are shared within member states,” said Victor Kasimona, a leading Zambian water engineer.

The alarm was being sounded at a conference on Nov. 16-17 on Integrated Development and Utilisation of Regional Water Resources in this resort town, some 272 kms east of the capital Harare.

Regional governments are counting on two approaches to cope with water shortages in the future.

Some experts and politicians believe that available water, if properly distributed, could cover regional needs. They are therefore urging taking water from areas where it is under- utilised to areas of high demand.

Among such transfers is the Lesotho Highland Water Project, designed to export water to South Africa. Another is the proposed Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project, which would pipe water south to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city.

Until these projects come on stream, the conference noted, water will remain a potential thorn in the flesh of regional integration.

This warning came three months after nine SADC members — Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia — signed a protocol on shared Watercourse Systems in Johannesburg, South Africa.

It calls for equitable utlisation, cooperation over development projects that could effect water resources and pollution safeguards.

Only Angola and Zambia did not sign the protocol which requires ratification by six states only to become law.

“Although none has ratified it yet, the protocol is an insurance against war,” says Moremi Sekwale, a water engineer from Botswana, “And since water is a very emotive issue, we need to put in place mechanism for a master water plan to avoid war.”

Alan Conley, a top South African water engineer, said he hopes the protocol “will prove to be an example to the world of how to deal with water issues peacefully in the interests of people who cannot live without it.”

The protocol provides for the setting up of an umbrella body to be known as the Regional Water Authority with an independent water court, Zimbabwean economist Eric Bloch explains.

“It must be an independent and partial body to oversee the tasks of sharing water in the region,” says Bloch.

However, Zimbabwean lawyer Bob Stumbles who runs a regional arbitration law firm in Harare, warns that the idea may prove unworkable until SADC members harmonise their current water laws.

Some SADC countries he points out use English law and others Dutch/Latin or Portuguese law: “Unless they are harmonised we stand no chance in court.”

Drought menacing Southern Africa is also a problem for Kenya, Algeria and Tunisia on the African continent which are already short of water, the World Bank reports. By the year 2020 the list may include Ethiopia, Egypt and Somalia.

SOUTHERN AFRICA-WATER: Conflict Looms As Rivers Dry

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NYANGA, ZIMBABWE, Nov 20 1995 (IPS) - Agreement now among Southern African countries to share water in the sub-region could avoid the prospect of conflict over dwindling water resources in the future, experts warn.
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