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   "Water is [determined by] matters of money and management and politics, and …solutions to the looming crisis in freshwater are only to be found in the collective political will," says Marq de Villiers in Water Wars: Is the World's Water Running Out?

    For southern Africa, de Villiers' statement is crucial. In a sub-region with several shared river systems, sustainable and balanced use of freshwater resources is important for economic development and regional integration. This has made it vital for the region and the whole world to now work towards ensuring water security.

    According to the World Water Commission, water security means that "every person has access to enough safe water at affordable cost to lead a clean, healthy and productive life, while ensuring that the natural environment is protected and enhanced." Providing adequate water to meet these basic needs must be done in a manner that works in harmony with nature.

    A recent World Water Forum held in the Netherlands discussed global water security. Most delegates agreed that achieving water security requires cooperation between different water users, and between those sharing river basins and aquifers. This has to be done within a framework that allows for the protection of vital eco-systems from pollution and other environmental threats.

    Water security has also been touted as a precondition for any effective poverty reduction strategy, and of effective environmental sanitation, wastewater management and flood control.

    Water is one of the prime movers for regional integration and a key sector that would contribute immensely towards the achievement of SADC's key objectives of poverty alleviation, food security and economic development.

    Regional estimates put renewable fresh water resources at an annual average of 650 billion cu m only, distributed in the rivers, lakes and groundwater bodies of southern Africa.

    However, the availability of safe and clean drinking water to communities in the region still needs to be improved.

    The fresh water situation is precarious in numerous developing countries, as a large part of the population still lacks sufficient and clean water.

    The Southern Africa Vision for Water, Life and the Environment in the 21st Century, drafted by the Global Water Partnership Southern African Technical Advisory Committee (GWP-SATAC), seeks to improve the availability of fresh water and create water security in the region. The Vision document was recently presented to the second World Water Forum.

    The vision for southern Africa is drawn from the UNESCO-backed World Water Vision (WWV) guided by the World Commission on Water in the 21st Century.

    As a way of creating water security, the WWV aims to develop public awareness on the risks of major water problems as a result of inaction, as well as encourage innovative thinking on how these problems can be tackled.

    However, communication campaigns should be directed at behavioural change, without which there will be no prospect over the longer term of reducing pollution load and maintaining a clean, healthy and productive environment.

    The WWV also seeks to encourage and empower people to participate in devising and implementing solutions to the water problems as well as generating political commitment to turn public awareness into effective action.

    The southern African vision statement came out of a consultative process involving citizens and officials in most of the 14 SADC countries. Central to the ideas contained in the vision document is the utilisation of shared water resources.

    About 70 percent of the region's water resources are in the form of watercourse systems that are shared by two or more states. With the exclusion of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the 11 continental SADC member states share water from 15 systems.

    The biggest watercourse is the Zambezi river basin, shared by eight riparian countries, Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The river is utilised differently by people living along its banks.

    The water vision emphasises the need for increased cooperation and integration among SADC members as a way toward meaningful socio-economic development. Shared watercourses have been a potential source of conflict and the SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses seeks to promote cooperation in the utilisation of common water resources within the region.

    Several bilateral and multilateral agreements exist to facilitate cooperation in providing water security between countries in the region. Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania have an agreement on the efficient regulation and management of Lake Malawi and the Shire river.

    Lesotho and South Africa have an agreement on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project designed to meet the growing water demands from the Vaal river system and to generate hydro-power for Lesotho, while Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland are looking at ways of utilising the Incomati basin sustainably.

    While the vision describes possible future scenarios and indicates where to go, the Framework for Action is a route map of how to get there. It will identify the milestones in the process and the policy measures, management instruments, investment priorities and the implementation strategy required to reach those milestones.

    For better use, the SADC states have been urged to think along the lines of regional water dependence, saying this will help in regional food security as member countries concentrate on producing crops that are suitable to their water demand.

    The southern African vision statement highlights that growing populations, coupled with environmental factors that include deforestation, extension of desert regions and pollution, are a threat to the region's water security.

    At the Water forum, 18 March was "Africa Day Programme for Southern Africa" when the region showcased its Water Vision in dance, drama and video presentations.

    The region's vision is centred on "equitable and sustainable utilisation of water for social and environmental justice, regional integration and economic benefit for present and future generations."

    According to Agenda 21 drafted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, "Integrated water resources management is based on the perception of water as an integral part of the ecosystem, a natural resource and a social and economic good, whose quantity and quality determine the nature of its utilisation".

    "To this end, water resources have to be protected, taking into account the functioning of aquatic ecosystems and the perenniality of the resource, in order to satisfy and reconcile needs for water in human activities," says the Agenda 21.