Environmental Protection and Sustainable Management of the Okavango River Basin

The Okavango River Basin remains one of the least impacted basins in the African Continent. Mounting socio-economic pressures in the riparian countries could result in irretrievable environmental breakdown and consequent loss of domestic and global environmental benefits. Maintaining these benefits requires agreement over the sharing of both the benefits and associated liabilities through joint management of the basin's water resources. The establishment of the Permanent Okavango River Commission (OKACOM), an advisory body, was a first step in this direction. The proposed project, while strengthening OKACOM and the countries capacity, would help removing the barriers still preventing joint agreement on actions to protect the basin’s globally valuable ecosystems by sustainably manage the shared water resources. The project would focus on reaching a science based diagnostic analysis of the transboundary environmental problems (TDA), as a basis for building consensus among riparians on selected priority actions needed to address these transboundary problems (SAP), including policy, legal and legislative reforms. The proposed actions represent a response to the SADC Protocol and the UN Transboundary Watercourse Convention.