by Munyaradzi Chenje
Zimbabwe has kicked off a SADC-region
initiative that will, among other things, contribute towards the development of the world
water vision for the millennium by March
2000.
The initiative coordinated by the Ministry of
Rural Resources and Water Development, involves a series of 11 water week workshops to be
conducted throughout mainland Southern
African Development Community (SADC) countries,
with the exception of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for the
next two months. The first three-day workshop was held in Harare recently.
The objective of the water weeks is to
highlight water issues in a region in which
droughts are common and water is critical to development. In addition to diverting public attention to water
issues and publicising the region's
four-year old Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems, Zimbabweans are also expected to provide their vision for
water resources management in the 21st
century.
Each SADC member was expected to undertake
similar activities, which culminated in the second regional stakeholders' meeting held in Gaborone in November. The first stakeholders'
meeting, held in Pretoria at the beginning of July, was organised by the Global Water
Partnership Southern African Technical
Advisory Committee (SATAC).
SATAC is chaired by Ms Tabeth Matiza-Chiuta, a
wetlands expert and field programmes coordinator of the Harare-based World Conservation
Union Regional Office for Southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA). She says the GWP, which groups individuals and organisations involved in
various areas of water management, was initiated in 1996 to provide a global forum for action-oriented decision-making, focusing on
translating the international agreements into
practice and supporting developing countries in the sustainable
management of their water resources.
"With the establishment of close ties with
the SADC Water Sector, GWP-SATAC hopes
to assist the water
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sector
to implement effective IWRM in which all the
stakeholders are involved," says Matiza who has just been elected to the global membership steering committee at a GWP
meeting in Stockholm.
At the GWP fourth annual consultative group
meeting held between 12-13 August
in the Swedish capital, SATAC submitted its draft report on the region's vision: Southern Africa Vision for Water,
Life and Environment in the 21st Century. The
report, which was produced following the first stakeholders'
meeting, will be the basis for national-level debate in SADC countries over the next two months.
The report gives an overview of water in the
SADC region, highlighting the variability of rainfall across the region and variations in
rainfall from season-to-season, often
creating water shortages or severe droughts in some parts of the region.
"Droughts exert a severe impact on a wide
range of environmental and economic activities in the region," says the report,
adding that many people in SADC countries
struggle to gain access to a minimum human requirement of 25 litres a day.
The major problems highlighted by the report in
terms of water resources management in the
SADC region include the following:
· A rapidly growing and urbanising population;
· Widespread absolute poverty;
· Widespread food insecurity;
· Minimal coverage of water and sanitation services among
the urban and rural poor;
· Disease and premature death;
· Polluted water bodies;
· Low levels of energy supply;
· Degraded watersheds;
· Transboundary river basins with complex water rights
issues; and
·
Constraints in water management
institutions.
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Other water-related issues that have received public
attention include the proposed Zambezi water
pipeline. Similar water issues exist in the other SADC
countries and will further be highlighted in national visions before a regional vision is finalised.
The SATAC draft
report states a developing and sustainable southern African population that is
economically prosperous needs a vision of:
· Access to safe water for all;
· Proper sanitation and waste disposal;
· Food security for all households;
· Energy security for all households;
· A protected environment;
· Security from natural disasters;
· New approaches to the economics and financing of water
management; and
Water policy, management
institutions and participation in decision-making.
"Recognising that the
potential water world could be substantially improved
from that which exists at present, the peoples of southern Africa express a desire
to derive the maximum benefits from the water resource during their own time.
"They also wish to
bequeath the same benefits to their children and to successive
generations. The peoples of southern Africa, as individuals, as families, as communities, as social groups, as
nations, and as a common people of a common
region are committed to achieving the vision," says the document.
Ultimately, it is hoped that the vision would be
endorsed by SADC water ministers and presented at the second World Water Forum and
Ministerial Conference scheduled for The Hague in March 2000.
The Hague conference would
articulate the World Water Vision for the 21st Century and the Framework for Action.
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