On 23rd and 24th of November, the 7th Annual Water Stewardship Conference will bring together virtually representatives from government, industry, civil society and development partners to explore how investments in South Africa’s water sector can be leveraged to generate sustained economic growth, employment, and wellbeing.
Jointly hosted by the Strategic Water Partners Network (SWPN), GIZ’s Natural Resources Stewardship Programme (NatuReS), the Royal Danish Embassy and the National Business Initiative (NBI) with the support of the Department for Water and Sanitation (DWS), the event builds on the momentum of last year’s consultations which focused on ‘Strengthening the Water Value Chain through Partnerships’.
This year’s topic of “Water Stewardship in Action: A journey to economic recovery” will unpack what needs to be done to create robust governance for sustainable economic recovery and which water investments are needed to support a post-COVID green recovery.
The conference will be organised around two inter-related sessions where representatives from government, private sector and civil society will discuss these critical topics, offering not only different perspectives but also working towards joint solutions to address these pertinent challenges.
Drought and scarcity of water can have devastating impacts on the social and economic development of a region, as can be seen in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province, which is suffering from an ongoing drought and water crisis. In order to shed light on the impacts and evaluate different mitigation scenarios, the Natural Resources Stewardship Programme (NatuReS) as part of the Nelson Mandela Bay Water & Economic Resilience Partnership commissioned the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) to analyse the impact of water scarcity and effects of different mitigation scenarios on economic growth and human wellbeing for the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) area and South Africa as a whole. The macroeconomic study found, by using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model, that improving water saving and reducing non-revenue water will have the most positive effects in terms of GDP and employment, while other measures such as water pricing and reuse and desalination will have little or no positive effects. Not addressing water scarcity will have the most negative effects with a decrease of GDP and loss of jobs.
Aerial view of the Nelson Mandela Bay area. Copyright: Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber
Apart from knowing about the impacts of scarcity, it is also very important to identify the most suitable areas for catchment restoration and management activities. Therefore, NatuReS within the framework of the Nelson Mandela Bay Water & Economic Resilience Partnership and the Algoa Bay Water Fund commissioned the economic consultancy StratEcon to do a comparative analysis of the three Eastern Cape catchments Kouga, Kromme and Baviaanskloof regarding their macroeconomic and water profiles. This way, the most attractive one to potential funders for restoration and catchment management activities should be identified. By firstly conducting a baseline study of the physical and economic environments of the catchments and subsequently calculating a multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA), the Kouga catchment was identified as the most suitable for potential funders.
The Langkloof Valley in the Kouga catchment. Copyright: LivingLands
These findings shall help to inform policymakers and funders to focus their endeavours on the right measures to address the water security challenges in NMB. NatuReS aims to support solutions that improve water security, ensure livelihood strategies and safeguard economic investment through a natural resource stewardship approach, while protecting upstream landscape integrity. For this, the two comprehensive studies were concisely summarised and published as informative brochures to promote stewardship in the Nelson Mandela Bay area and beyond. Please find the brochure “The economic impacts of water insecurity” here and “Economic Baseline and Comparative Analysis” here.
The global Covid-19 pandemic has presented an unprecedented threat to humanity. It has gravely toppled life as previously known, evolving from a massive health crisis to an economic and social one with devastating outcomes. While many developing countries like Zambia continue to deploy mechanisms and interventions to try to mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic, these have not been enough to offset the pandemic’s impact. The top-down approaches have been disempowering to local grassroots actors with little or no emphasis on building local capacity for sustainable community-driven solutions and outcomes.
Small glimpse into the lives of community leaders and members in vulnerable communities as they narrate their experiences and the effects of Covid-19 on their wellbeing and livelihood. This video was produced by the Zambia Institute of Mass Communications (ZAMCOM) for Lusaka Water Security Initiative (LuWSI) and Lusaka City Council (LCC) with funding from NatuReS. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the BMZ, European Union or FCDO.
In seeking to “Build Back Better”, NatuReS Zambia supported the Lusaka Water Security Initiative (LuWSI) in strengthening community voice and action. LuWSI has coordinated activities that aim to promote and strengthen the response to COVID-19 prevention in communities. These efforts led by Lusaka City Council (LCC) in collaboration with Zambia Institute of Mass Communications (ZAMCOM) and Zambia Social Forum (ZAMSOF) have culminated in the development of a framework for monitoring COVID-19 response activities and capacity building, as well as COVID-19 response plans for five wards in Lusaka. A communication strategy was also developed to build capacity and create networks between journalists and communities for profiling community COVID-19 stories, including a training manual for citizen journalism.
As NatuReS Zambia, we believe in strengthening governance and supporting projects like these for a participatory approach to safeguarding the well-being of all.
Guiding documents developed to build adaptive capacities in communities.
Agriculture is Tanzania’s main economic driver, providing 30% of the country’s GDP and livelihood opportunities to 70%of the population living in rural areas. As a result, this sector aids the country in reducing poverty rates by providing income-generating opportunities.
However, due to the rapid increase in population size, massive portions of land are being cleared for agricultural purposes, causing an overdependence on the available natural resources required for maintaining a balanced eco-system and controlling the adequate environmental conditions required for a habitable environment.
Conserving ecosystems while providing rural communities with income opportunities
Seeing this, partners of the Sustainable Water Management (SUWAMA) partnership in the Weruweru sub catchment in Northern Tanzania worked together to bring an alternative, aimed to help communities in these rural areas broaden their livelihood opportunities in an eco-friendly manner. The idea is to conserve the ecosystem so that it continues providing the optimal conditions for sustainable agriculture whilst providing rural communities an opportunity to generate a little more income through a #pay2grow model.
Ficus, Cordia Africana, and Markhamia Lutea seedlings ready to be planted. Copyright: GIZ/Sarah Scott
Testing this idea in the Weruweru sub-catchment, each partner took up their role responsibly by sharing tasks equally amongst themselves. A study was done by the Kilimanjaro Project in collaboration with the Pangani Basin Water Board (PBWB) and the Weruweru Water Users Association (WUA) to identify the degraded riparian hotspots in the area. After the hotspots were identified, African Plantations Kilimanjaro (APK) allocated the nursery site and water to raise 21,500 seedlings, thus enabling Kijani Pamoja to nurture the seedlings appropriately. When the seedlings were ready, Dekker Chrysanten transported 1400 of them to the identified planting sites allocated in the survey. Finally, communities from each village in the wards participated in planting these seedlings on the identified hotspots with guidance from PBWB, Local Government Authorities (LGAs) and Kijani Pamoja. The remaining 20,100 will be planted towards the end of the year 2021.
PBWB official (on the left) guiding the men of the Nkweshoo village on where to plant the seedlings in the 2nd riparian hotspot within the vicinity of the Weruweru river. Copyright: GIZ/Adelaide MkwawaMen and women of the Kilanya village planting trees together on the first riparian zone within the vicinity of the Weruweru river. Copyright: GIZ/Adelaide Mkwawa
These trees will be geo-tagged and closely monitored by the community through quarterly updates on the growth status. The communication will be done through a mobile application designed by Greenstand – an American NGO collaborating with Kijani Pamoja and the Kilimanjaro Project. The caretakers will take photos of these trees through the application and their existence will be justified through geo-tagging. As a reward for taking care of the trees, these caretakers will receive a small stipend from each tree. Also, educational information on the best preventative measures against COVID-19 in rural areas will be available on the application.
One of the three tree species, Markhamia Lutea, planted in the riparian hotspots. Copyright: GIZ/Adelaide Mkwawa
Seeing the successful collaboration between public and private sectors, civil society organisations and the community itself in the Weruweru sub-catchment shows that the natural resources stewardship approach in Tanzania has the potential to assist the government in meeting its set goals in the National Development Framework for the country’s socio-economic development.
