MAPUTO, 28 NOVEMBER - "Water an Essential Element for regional unity" was the theme of a series of international meetings on shared watercourses in the SADC region held in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, from 24-27 November.

Addressing the ministers responsible for water in the member countries of SADC (Southern African Development Community), who attended the meetings, the Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi declared that Africa urgently needs to draw up a strategy for hydraulic infrastructures to make the best use of its water resources, and combat drought and floods.

Mocumbi warned that the SADC region is already faced with water shortages, which will tend to worsen in the near future. "Over the last 20 years global warming has brought with it sharper cycles of droughts and floods, posing new challenges linked to the growing vulnerability of our countries to natural phenomena," he said.

"Our economies and our societies are threatened by external and unpredictable shocks that show us the need to join hands as good neighbours to find the best solutions to our problems," Mocumbi stressed.

The Mozambican Prime Minister said that with the end of racism and apartheid in the region, there are "unlimited possibilities for the development of relations of good neighbourliness, relations cemented in a historic common past of brotherhood, struggle and resistance".

The revised SADC protocol on shared water courses resulted from a vision that "partnership for integrated development" would bring gains to each and every SADC member state.

The protocol, said Mocumbi, "establishes principles and procedures that are an important reference mark in international water law, and a noteworthy landmark in the rules for international cooperation.

Mocumbi noted that over a third of Africa's population has no access to basic drinking water and sanitation services. In Mozambique, this figure rises to about two thirds. To achieve the Millennium Development Goals in the area of water (halving the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015) would require Mozambique to mobilise over a billion U.S. dollars in the next 12 years.

"Such financial resources can only be mobilised in a clear framework of regional cooperation," stressed the Prime Minister.

Each SADC member shares between three and nine river basins. "To provide water supply and sanitation services, we need the resources that are in those basins," he said. "We need equitable rules for access and sharing; we need to find mutual benefits in water itself, and in other goods, such as electricity".

The series of international meetings on shared watercourses culminated with the signing of five agreements hailed as further steps towards regional integration in the delicate question of shared watercourses.

The SADC protocol is an attempt to ensure that rivers are managed in such a way as to benefit all those who share a given river basin.

The regional strategic plan, the most significant agreement signed during the meetings, envisages that the countries concerned should work to set up regulatory bodies to manage the river basins they share.

Thus Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana would have to set up such a body to manage the Limpopo basin. Its task would be to ensure that appropriate hydraulic infrastructures are built, manage the waters of the Limpopo, and promote economic development throughout the basin.

So far 25 projects have been identified in river basins throughout the SADC region, which should be implemented as the regulatory bodies begin to function. These projects require total investment of about 70 million U.S. dollars.

One of the other four agreements does indeed concern the Limpopo basin - but was only signed by Mozambique and South Africa. Zimbabwe and Botswana cannot sign until the agreement has been approved by their parliaments.

An agreement was signed on managing Lake Niassa, and the sub-basin of the Shire river, shared by Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. A further accord sets up a joint commission between Malawi and Mozambique on water resources of common interest.

The final agreement signed was for financing the preliminary phase of a joint study on the Maputo River. The countries concerned are Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland, and the study should cost about two million U.S. dollars. (SARDC)

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