#3- Introduction to transboundary water management: The case of the Zambezi river basin

With my most recent post in mind, I’d like to continue the discussion about water conflicts and the importance of exploring the interactions between riparian states at transboundary water resources. The Zambezi river basin is the perfect site to observe these types of interactions and  power relations often at play in transboundary water management, as it has a complicated yet fascinating history with the notion of water wars. 

But first, let’s go into some geographical context to get a better sense of locality.

The Zambezi river has the fourth largest basin in Africa and is fully located in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which it is the biggest watercourse system. This alone should already give you an idea of the substantial relevance the Zambezi basin has in this region, and how it gives hydro-hegemony to whomever is controlling a large part of it. The river’s source is in Zambia, from which it flows through a myriad of landscapes, cultures and climates, until it reaches its end in Mozambique (Figure 1). As such, the ‘Zambezi river basin is one of the most diverse and valuable natural resources in Africa’, providing not only the basic needs for 30 million people, but also supports sustainable economic growth and development of the riparian countries it flows through.  After all, it isn’t described as the River of Life for nothing. To get a deeper understanding of its relevance I recommend watching the Zambezi River Authority’s video at the end of the blog (Video 1).

Figure 1. Zambezi river basin, including its tributaries, lakes and riparian states; percentages indicate the area of the basin in each country (map modified by me).

As mentioned in my first post, the rainfall in Southern Africa is highly variable causing many regions in the basin to experience a cycle of floods and droughts, which inherently affect the distribution and volume of water across the basin. For example, countries like Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia- all in the northern parts of the basin- have an annual average of 1200 m/a in rainfall, whereas southern and western areas only get an average amount of 700 m/a annually. When adding human activities like building dams and reservoirs to this climatic variability, it is no surprise that hydropolitical tensions arise. In fact when the water war hypothesis emerged in the mid-1990s many politicians and researchers believed that the Zambezi river would become one of the first among many wars fought over water in the SADC. Yet, this war never came. 

Instead the cooperation problems over the shared water resources in the Zambezi basin can be best described as ‘collective action dilemmas’, which institutions are seen as the solution of. However, this relation to institutions raises important questions about how governance mechanisms should be formed, maintained and developed, in order to manage these types of dilemmas effectively. It also begs to question whether scientific and technocratic policies are the best way to think about transboundary water management or if imagining the basin as ‘politically and socially constructed by different agencies’, is a better representation of how governance ought to be designed in the long-run.

The basin’s first cases of collective action dilemmas can be traced back to shortly after independence, where countries were following their own national interests and development ambitions; the governance of the river followed the idea that everyone manages their part of the basin on their own, without much thought to interact across national borders. Thus, the basin transformed into a ‘state construct’, that focused on the management within individual territories rather than between riparian nations. This type of competitive behaviour is also one the reasons why the Zambezi River Action Plan (ZACPLAN) had a lack of success. Introduced in 1987 with the help of UNEP, this action plan was one of the first attempts of the 8 states to view the basin as a whole and govern it through the paradigm of integrated water resource management (IWRM); it was used to support more than just ecological sustainability, but equally aim for social justice and economic efficiency. Unfortunately, only 4 out of the 19 proposed projects within the plan were funded and implemented, due to limited commitment and agreement between the states (Table 1). Thus, one big question remains: is IWRM the most appropriate approach to governing water in the Zambezi basin? 

More on that in my next post…

                                                            Table 1. Proposed projects of the ZACPLAN

Video 1. Zambezi River Authority video about the river

basin and its cultural, ecological and economic relevance.