Managing adaptation: international donors’ influence on international river basin organizations in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

Today, many of the world’s river and lake basins are threatened by environmental problems such as change in river flow, water pollution, reduced water availability, salt water intrusion, or loss of plant and animal species. International river basin organizations (RBOs) governing such rivers are increasingly in need to address such challenges. At the same time many of them receive technical and financial support from international donor organizations. The paper therefore addresses the question of how international donor institutions support adaptation capacities of RBOs. The aim is to identify conditions under which donor support to RBOs can support adaptation to environmental changes and improve the resilience of international water basins. It does so by focusing on two cases in Southern Africa, including the Orange-Senqu Basin and the Orange-Senqu River Commission as well as the Cubango-Okavango Basin and the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission. The findings of the paper illustrate an ambivalent role of international donors with regard to river basin adaptation. While they do provide important means for adaptation in form of knowledge, financial and technical resources, they can, at the same time, threaten the long-term sustainability of adaptation activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Transboundary rivers
• river basin organizations
• environmental change
• adaptation
• international donors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. One exception being Schulze and Schmeier 2012 which briefly touch upon the role of donors within a larger framework they developed.

2. Southern Africa is here defined along the borders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). SADC as a political organization was established in 1992 by ten African nations and has since grown to 15-member countries (Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). The overall objectives of the SADC are an increasing political and economic integration of the region.

3. One can generally distinguish between two types of RBOs (Schmeier 2010): A coordination-type and implementation-type of RBO. RBOs with an implementation mandate are typically responsible for the development and maintenance of joint projects and hence equipped with more powers and resources. Coordination-oriented RBOs on the other side are responsible for coordinating different river basin management task, including the oversight or monitoring of joint projects, without necessarily implementing these themselves. Whereas the first type of RBOs requires larger budgets and staff numbers to ensure the full operation of the respective infrastructures, the latter are usually leaner organizations with fewer staff and much smaller budgets.

4. In particularly international and western environmental NGOs and advocacy groups have played a prominent role in the anti-dam movement, thus slowing the economic development paradigm, and the spread of more environmental-protection oriented norms which can partly explain the more cautious lending of western donors for large-scale water infrastructures during the 1990s and 2000s (Conca 2006, Chapter 6).

5. Although the duty to notify of planned measures that could have substantial transboundary impacts is a core obligation under International Water Law (which is also integrated in the ORESECOM Agreement) prior to these guidelines there were no guiding documents that outlined how this obligation would be realized in the basin. This had caused disagreement among riparian states in prior projects such as the first phase of the LHWP where only environmental and social impacts in the two project countries South Africa and Lesotho were considered. Also data and information were only shared among these two countries which caused disagreement, particularly with downstream Nambia. The environmental assessment guidelines now stipulate that the country where the project is to be located, is responsible for initiating and facilitating a notification and consultation process and follow a detailed seven-step procedure. Notification must take place via the ORASECOM Council and all required data and information is collected and distributed via ORASECOM Secretariat.

6. ORASECOM operates with an annual budget of around 2 million South African Rand (ZRA) paid by all four members on an equal share. This core budget primarily covers ORASECOM’s Secretariat costs.

7. Most of these studies were produced by regional consultants, coming from local universities and research institutions such as the Agostinho Neto University, the Okavango Research Institute, or Namibia’s Polytechnic.

8. In 2010, for example, heavy rains and floods, destroyed crops, sanitation facilities and houses and consequently displaced at least 4000 families in the Angolan and 1000 families in the Namibian parts of the basin. These floods also impacted tourism industry in Namibia and Botswana as lodges had to be closed down temporarily (Okwenjani 2010, OKACOM 2011a, p. 6).

9. OKACOM’s annual core budget of 1.2 Mio USD has been entirely covered by SIDA until 2011. Only then the three member countries started making equal financial contributions (initially starting from 50,000 USD) which are planned to increase up to 400,000 USD by 2017.

Additional information

Funding

The author gratefully acknowledges the PhD-funding received from the German Business Foundation.