Water, "the new oil"?
Water has sometimes been dubbed "the new oil" - a scarce resource which could provoke conflict within and between countries. As a water-stressed region, the majority of whose citizens are already stalked by poverty, Southern Africa would seem to be the perfect theatre for "water wars". But in line with principles of regional integration, the Southern African Development Community's Water Division is at the heart of a growing body of institutions and best practices that highlight the equal potential of water as a catalyst for cooperation across borders, and a spur for development.
The establishment and consolidation of river basin organisations provides water managers with valuable technical, social and economic data to inform stronger policy; guidelines for such things as environmental protection, stakeholder participation and benefit sharing provide a framework to make effective use of this data and to negotiate coherent development strategies along the full length of the region's many shared rivers.
The Water Dialogue brought together water managers, agronomists, scientists and researchers, representatives of industry, cooperating partners and others to consider the theme 'Watering development in SADC: Toward climate resilience through benefit sharing'.
Media workshop participants also received a briefing organised by the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission and field trip focused on the 2010 Okavango floods.
A special online issue of IPS's Terraviva magazine captured the output of the workshop participants, and a print version was distributed to delegates at the dialogue on the final day. The TerraViva publication is available online at africa.ipsterraviva.net, and includes feature stories, interviews and audio from the dialogue and beyond.
This capacity development initiative is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in delegated cooperation with the UK Department for International Development (DFID) on behalf of the SADC Secretariat. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) is implementing the partnership programme. Additional support was provided by OneWorld and DANIDA.
