#4- Tragedy of the Commons: the age-old dilemma

Figure 1. ‘Down the Zambezi’, October 1997

Continuing with where I left off in my last post, I’d like to go into a bit more detail about why ZACPLAN did not lead to much progress in terms of sustainable development and water management practises in the Zambezi river basin.

But first, a little recap.

ZACPLAN was a management scheme that came into action in 1987 after the former Executive Director of UNEP and three basin countries (Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe) decided it was time to encourage integrated management in the Zambezi basin. It was one of the first initiatives to consider the environmental impacts on freshwater bodies, which made it quite unique compared to other international agreements. However, it was also greatly driven by a preventative, bandaid-like approach to avoid future conflicts, which ultimately hindered its translation into reality. In the end ZACPLAN was signed by 5 out of the 8 basin states, those being Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

Firstly, Table 1 partially suggests why it was unsuccessful: both Angola and Malawi were not part of the agreement, despite having the second highest percentage of basin area (18.3%) and largest percentage of total population in the basin (29.4%). With these two countries completely out of the picture it was unlikely for ZACPLAN’s IWRM approach to succeed, as a large chunk of the basin and its water users were disregarded.

Source

Furthermore, this action plan remained unsuccessful due to the Tragedy of the Commons. While many of the riparian countries agreed to interact with one another, there was an underlying notion that ‘national sovereignty would be threatened, and some nations would maximise their own needs and profit at the expense of other[s]’. This unfolded when the initially agreed upon sharing of the river’s resources with South Africa was overturned, leaving basin states in the South frustrated. Due to their location, countries like Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique were in a perfect position to divert water from the Zambezi to South Africa in exchange for capital and ZACPLAN legally hindering these countries from such water sharing schemes was not well received. Hence, the plan was viewed as an ‘anti-South Africa’ movement formulated by UNEP, and unsurprisingly didn’t gain much support from the basin countries.

Resulting from this was a growing mistrust between the riparian nations, which was only heightened by the strong leadership role of UNEP and significant share the organisation held in the initial proposal. Basin states worried about their own agency as well as ownership, and a foreign organisation yielding so much power compared to them. Thus, ZACPLAN might have started with the objective of using IWRM, but didn’t put it into practice very well, as there was an insufficient amount of multi-sectoral interactions across the basin institutions (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Diagram of the SADC and Zambezi river basin institutions.

Another important reason why the implementation of ZACPLAN was harder than imagined is because not all governments had, and still don’t have, the same privilege to prioritise sustainable development over more economically viable options. For example, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia had the lowest economic development out of the scheme’s member states in 1990, with GDPs per capita of $174, $291 and $409 respectively. That being said, Malawi’s lack of participation wasn’t due to their low economic status, but rather their political instability and unrest. Nevertheless, when combining this desire for economic development and fear of other countries “taking the resources away”, it explains why ZACPLAN was unsuccessful and basin states invested in other forms of development.

Hydropower dams

One form of development that the basin states greatly turned towards were large-scale hydropower dams because of their energy capacity and promoted sustainability. Up until now, dams in the Zambezi basin were able to produce approximately 5000MW of energy, including its 2 largest hydropower dams Kariba and Cahora Bassa. However, this amount will likely increase with future plans for more hydropower projects (Figure 3). While it sounds like there are no drawbacks with building dams, there are various consequences on downstream livelihoods, biodiversity and ecosystems when these mega-schemes are managed inadequately. A lack of consideration for off-site impacts especially exemplifies how some dams are not managed according to an IWRM approach. 

More on that in my next post!

Figure 3. Existing and potential hydropower projects in the Zambezi river basin.