The Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) is preparing a Zambezi Regional Nature, People and Climate (NPC) Investment Plan to pilot and scale up nature-based solutions to climate change threats.
This comes after the ZAMCOM was named as one of five countries or regions to benefit from a global USD350 million fund being disbursed through the Climate Investment Funds (CIF).
The Programme Manager for Zambezi Strategic Plan (ZSP), Evans Kaseke told the 10th SADC River Basin Organisations/Shared Watercourse Institutions (RBOs/SWIs) Workshop in Maputo, Mozambique, that the Zambezi Regional Nature NPC Investment Plan was being developed with support from cooperating partners.
“The programme aims to promote and protect natural environments through landscape approaches by investing in agriculture, food production, forest and land use, and coastal system management,” he said during a presentation on “Sharing experiences in the development of investment programmes in the Zambezi Watercourse.”
The Zambezi Regional Nature NPC Investment Plan is one of the key investment programmes, alongside the Programme for Integrated Development and Adaptation to Climate Change in the Zambezi (PIDACC Zambezi) that ZAMCOM is working on to actualize the aspirations of the ZAMCOM Agreement and its long-term blueprint, the Zambezi Strategic Plan.
While only five of the eight Riparian States that make up ZAMCOM - Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania - will benefit from the funding under the CIF, PIDACC Zambezi covers all the states, 13 sub-basins and the well over 40 million watercourse inhabitants.
Mr. Kaseke told the RBOs/SWIs workshop that partnerships were key to unlocking funding as well as development as they allowed for joint coordination; joint activities, co-organizing of events, sharing of resources and reduction of duplication of roles.
The workshop, being held from 2-4 October 2023, is running under the theme, “Promoting water security through inclusive transboundary and conjunctive management and development of water resources.”