The Zambezi Water Commission (ZAMCOM), in collaboration with the Go-Nexus Project, held their first workshop for stakeholders in the Zambezi Watercourse, from 12-13 October 2022, to analyze critical issues in the development and management of the shared water resources.
Delegates drawn from the eight Riparian States attended the one and half day dialogue in Harare, Zimbabwe. ZAMCOM Executive Secretary (ES) Felix Ngamlagosi in his welcome remarks said the aim of the meeting was to introduce the Go-Nexus project to key water, energy, food and ecosystems (WEFE) stakeholders in the watercourse, and to establish a basis for co-operation between the parties.
In pursuit of this goal, the dialogue sought to examine the interconnection or nexus challenges that the project shall tackle using the Go-Nexus methodology.
ZAMCOM member states have developed the Strategic Plan for the Zambezi Watercourse (ZSP) running up to 2040, and giving direction focusing on four pillars. These are:
Pillar 1 – Infrastructure Investment. Focuses on hydropower generation, agricultural water, water supply services and catchment and natural resources management.
Pillar 2 – Livelihoods Support, seeks to improve livelihoods through addressing socio-economic, environmental, political and climatic challenges affecting the ability of communities to adapt or respond to shocks.
Pillar 3 – Environmental Resources Protection and Utilization addresses degradation hotspots caused by poor land-use methods, deforestation, erosion, loss of soil fertility, overgrazing, etc.
Pillar 4 – Water Resources Management, to ensure sound water resources management and development.
“Effective implementation of interventions under these four pillars requires availability of reliable information and knowledge of the situation to enable design of appropriate solutions,” ES Ngamlagosi said.
Climate change and population growth pose a threat to the availability and distribution of freshwater resources, giving impetus to the need to invest in better understanding of water resources and their natural variability through further research, in addition to that collected from the existing Zambezi Water Resources Information System (ZAMWIS).
“We need to better understand cultural dimensions impacting water management practices and how they affect human behaviour in different societies in the Zambezi Watercourse. Such research projects are costly and require specialized expertise.
“ZAMCOM recognizes the importance of partnerships and that a strong partnership can bring about the changes needed to achieve its objectives in the watercourse,” the ES said.
Pursuant to this, the institution in collaboration with the EU consortium of Research Institutions developed a research proposal titled, ‘Innovative Tools and Solutions for Governing the Water, Energy, Food and Ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus, dubbed Go-Nexus.” The proposal successfully sought EU financial support for the research implementation, which started in June 2021.
Up until 2025, Go-Nexus will research to help balance the nexus trade-offs between water, energy, food and ecosystems governance. Its approach combines advanced modelling with a participatory method to identify nexus challenges, bringing together stakeholders from different sectors in nexus dialogues.
Go-Nexus will conduct eight case studies delving into the WEFE issues. Of the eight studies, six are based on river basins in Europe and Africa, with two case studies tackling global and EU issues in a broader sense. Of the six river basin studies, only two are Africa, namely the Senegal River Basin and the Zambezi watercourse.
The Zambezi has its own unique features with the watercourse’s resources shared by eight states, and it is home to 40 million people, projected to reach 50 million by 2025. With its unique climate, geography, economic issues and water politics, the Zambezi watercourse covers an extensive area of 14 million square kilometres. It has large hydropower capacity and contains the world’s largest artificial reservoir by volume, Lake Kariba.
“Mounting socio-economic pressures on the watercourse, and climate change effects will require a better watercourse-wide understanding and agreement on its opportunities and challenges. Due to the scale of the drainage area and growing population to support, sustainable development in the basin requires careful consideration of many WEFE nexus issues and trade-offs.”
Go-Nexus will assess the nexus concerns of the Zambezi watercourse with help from local basin experts and stakeholders. These issues range from modelling activities such as hydropower development and coordinated management, to agricultural development for food security and environmental protection, and ecosystem service provision. The Go-Nexus Project will also examine impacts of mining activities and changing land use patterns under stress of climate and population changes.
From these dialogues, solutions will be co-designed to help the Zambezi watercourse face its future population and climate challenges.
ES Ngamlagosi stressed that stakeholder participation was critical to ensure ownership and the legitimacy of outputs and outcomes for sustainable cooperation within the watercourse.
“Consultation with participation of stakeholders linked to water resource management and development are at the heart of the overall approach (which is why this workshop includes stakeholders from various sectors including water, energy, agriculture, land and environment.”
Also in attendance were representatives of major ZAMCOM organs such as the Technical Committee, National Multi-sector Stakeholders Coordination Committees (NAMSCs), Watercourse-wide Multi-sector Stakeholder Co-ordination Committee (WAMSC) and focal points representing ZAMCOM’s strategic partners organisations including the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). These actors are expected to play a major role in project implementation.
ZAMCOM is a watercourse organization set up through the ZAMCOM Agreement by the eight states of Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe which share the watercourse.