Source: IUCN

(August, 21) The world’s biggest inland delta and its basin, the Okavango river basin is under scrutiny a t this week’s World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden (20-26 August 2006). Leaders and planners from Angola, Namibia and Botswana - the three countries sharing the Okavango basin - come together to share ideas of how to deal with challenges of climate change, unsustainable resources use and potential regional developments.

The aim is to come up with a plan for the future which involves the sharing of ideas, skills, information and experiences in an unprecedented effort to improve the joint management of the joint water resources.

Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, represented by their ministers of water resources, the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM), Every River has its People Project, and the Okavango Delta Management Plan (ODMP) secretariat is jointly convening a seminar where current projects will be presented and where seeds can be sown for furthering to the collaboration and develop a plan for the entire basin.

The Okavango River basin, located in the northern fringe of the Kalahari Desert, is one of the largest river basins in Southern Africa, shared by Angola, Namibia and Botswana. The basin drains into the inland Okavango delta (Botswana), the world’s second largest Ramsar site. The river provides many benefits in the basin, especially in the arid tail end where annual flooding of the delta provides a wealth of ecosystem goods and services such as reeds and thatching grass, firewood, fish, nutrients for flood recession farming, drinking water for wildlife, livestock and people on which local communities have depended for centuries. In the future, the delta’s health and existence may be threatened by climate change, unsustainable use by local people and faced with the challenge of balancing the competing and at times conflicting development needs in the basin.

Over the last three years, IUCN through its Water and Nature Initiative has supported the Government of Botswana to develop the Integrated Management plan for the Okavango delta. Consultations were carried out with a large number of people ranging from stakeholders in the delta right up to the highest level of decision making. In finalising the plan, a major challenge will be to achieve a common vision and full ownership of the process and outcome of the project, capturing the aspirations of local users, policy makers, and regional and international stakeholders.

The Okavango Delta Management Plan isexpected to provide input into the overall management of the Okavango River Basin through the Permanent Okavango Commission (OKACOM), a tri-partite river basin commission comprising Angola , Namibia and Botswana.

“Botswana is developing a management plan of a downstream section of a regional river basin. Therefore it is imperative that Botswana engages with Namibia and Angola to gain regional buy-in during the development of the plan, lest the whole exercise becomes futile,” says Portia Segomelo, Project Coordinator of the Okavango Delta Management Plan.

The development approaches and directions taken by Angola will determine future water flow to Botswana and Namibia . Ways of solving how to communicate and collaborate will therefore be crucial in the coming future. The common vision for the Delta will also have to be communicated upstream if the vision should become more than just an imaginary dream.

“With our experience from the Okavango Delta Management Plan we can contribute to collaboration in the basin in terms of sharing the lessons learnt from this process. In essence, this is what the Plan’s Communication strategy intends to contribute to: creating an understanding for issues faced by the other state, and develop mechanisms for sharing knowledge, skills and information,” says Portia.

For more information please visit:

On the Okavango workshop “Flowing Upstream and Downstream: Collaboration for Better Management”
(World Water Week, Wednesday 23 August, 13:30 – 17:00)
Ase Johannessen – Communication Officer, IUCN Botswana Country Office, ase.johannessen@iucn.org

On IUCN’s general involvement at World Water Week:
David Alix – Communication Officer, IUCN Water Programme, david.alix@iucn.org