Zambezi management project gets US $3.7 million

The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) and three international donor agencies signed a three-year agreement worth US $3.7 million for the development of an integrated water resource strategy for the Zambezi River Basin, PANA reported on Thursday. The report quoted official sources as saying that in terms of the agreement signed in Lusaka on Tuesday, the signatories agreed that the ZRA would implement the project on behalf of the SADC-Water Sector Coordinating Unit, the Swedish International Development Authority, the Danish International Development Agency and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. The overall aim of the project was to develop an integrated management strategy as a tool that would facilitate cross-sectoral planning and co-ordination of the use of water within the basin. The project also aimed at improving water availability and protection against floods and droughts, the report said, adding that the agreement was expected to encourage the use of water in the Zambezi river basin in a co-ordinated and equitable manner to avoid possible conflict of interests between local, subregional and regional users. Swedish Ambassador to Zambia, Kristina Svensson, said at the signing ceremony that the project was part of the ZRA Action Plan launched in 1985, before becoming an official SADC programme in 1987. Svennson said the project was important to the region against the background that Southern Africa was a water-scarce region where water was distributed unevenly in time and space. She said several countries would, in the next 10 to 20 years, experience a permanent water scarcity. Svennson said the water situation in the region would worsen as a result of the increase in population and its demands for improved lifestyle and the expansion of industrial development and agriculture. Hence, she said, the joint management of rivers was necessary to guarantee an equitable use of the water resources as stated in the revised SADC protocol on shared water-course systems. “Given these constraints, new approaches are needed to manage water in a sustainable and integrated manner for the benefit of the people, but also for the protection of the natural environment in Southern Africa for future generations,” Svensson said. She said the project would first focus on setting up a regional environment for strategic and integrated water resource management. An important part of this enabling environment, she explained, would be the establishment of the Zambezi River basin committee which would provide the legal and institutional framework for the joint management of the basin. “The second phase would concentrate on the development of management systems and models, while the third would develop the integrated water resources management strategy,” she said.