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Monyane Moleleki, MP
Minister of Natural Resources, Lesotho
And
The Chairman of SADC Sectoral Committee of Ministers responsible for Water
In the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
region,water is seen as one of major areas of cooperation and integration.This owes to its nature of often being transboundary and shared between two countries or more. Water resources define our wealth as individuals, nations, and community. They are critical to the regional growth, economic integration, and collective economic independence in an increasingly globalising world. There is, thus, a need for integrated water resources development and management in the region. One of the major constraints to achieving this integration has been a lack of information and poor dissemination of the little available information. However the existence of useful
tools, such as the Internet, has now made communication easier than it has ever been before. Hence we, the SADC water managers and users, would like to explore this opportunity in order to be able to exchange ideas on how to best manage and utilise our water resources in a sustainable manner.
In view of the importance of the role that water plays in ensuring the well-being of the peoples of SADC, a distinct Water Sector was established by the community in 1996. The overall responsibility of coordinating the sector was given to the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho. The day-to-day coordination activities of the sector are undertaken by a dedicated Government-funded unit known as the SADC Water Sector Coordinating Unit (SADC WSCU), in the Ministry of Natural Resources, in Lesotho. A full institutional framework of the sector is available under the Terms of Reference(TOR) section/page as part of the information provided by the website.
The vision of the SADC Water Sector is, "to attain the sustainable, integrated planning, development, utilisation and management of water resources that contribute to the attainment of SADC's overall objectives of an integrated regional economy on the basis of balance, equity and mutual benefit for all member States".
In pursuit of the implementation of our vision, we developed a legal framework in the form of the SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems on which water related developments and management should be based. This Protocol was signed by 11 member States in August 1995, in Johannesburg. It came into force in 1998 after ratification by the required two-thirds majority of the SADC member States. We have made efforts to amend this Protocol with a view to incorporating into it the current developments in international law, and to aligning them with other accepted international legal instruments, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses, adopted by the UN General Assembly and opened in April, 1997.
In the same year, 1997, with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP)(http://www.UNLesotho.org.ls), we embarked on the development of a Regional Strategic Action Plan (RSAP) on Integrated Water Resources Development and Management. This Action plan culminated in a Round Table Conference that was held in Geneva, Switzerland, from the 10th to the 11th of December, 1998. The plan represents our five year (1999-2004) programme framework through which we hope to achieve our vision. It contains 44 projects which have been prioritised by cutting them down to 31 projects of a soft infrastructural nature. The 31 prioritised projects were presented to the Cooperating Partners at the Geneva Round Table Conference, and individual donors picked individual projects for support. The 31 projects address the following eight major issues: Legal and Regulatory Framework; Institutional Strengthening; Sustainable Development Policies; Information Acquisition, Management and Dissemination; Education and Training; Awareness Building; Public Participation; Infrastructure.
I would like to invite all the peoples of SADC, the Africa Region, and the world at large, to join us in developing, utilising and managing our water resources in an equitable, sustainable and integrated manner. Through this strategy we can achieve our main development goals of poverty alleviation, food security and industrial development within the framework of integrated regional economies. With your assistance and that of our Cooperating Partners we can achieve the sector's vision. It is a known fact that water knows no political boundaries and it is a finite and a scarce resource.
Let us use this website to exchange information on pertinent issues about our sector and ensure that we keep our people informed of our activities in pursuing regional integration and community building.
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Monyane Moleleki, MP
Minister of Natural Resources, Lesotho
And
The Chairman of SADC Sectoral Committee of Ministers responsible for Water
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