Increasing Need for IWRM Capacity Building

During the last ten years after the launch of the "Regional Strategic Action Plan for Integrated Water Resources Development and Management”, the role and responsibilities of local governments in IWRM have gained growing recognition. Information has been made available widely, awareness on the importance of local level actors in IWRM is well established among most of the relevant actors, and the political will for driving a stronger local engagement is largely in place.

On the side of implementation, however, the majority of local governments in Southern Africa are still struggling to keep pace with the challenges arising from the manifold reforms of decentralisation. If IRWM is to achieve its goals in the countries of Southern Africa, major capacity building programmes for local governments will be indispensable in the years to come.

These are some of the key conclusions that have come out of the symposium ‘Water for Local Needs – the Contribution of Local Governments to IWRM’ that took place in Benoni (South Africa) on 9 and 10 July, 2007.

Nearly 100 delegates, mainly representing local, provincial and national governments, had joined the event to discuss the current situation and the perspectives of local governments to enhance their services and overall performance by following the principles of IWRM. The majority of the participants came from the four countries sharing the Limpopo river basin, namely Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

The symposium has been part of the project “LoGo Water: Towards effective involvement of local government in IWRM in river basins of the Southern African Development Community”. LoGo Water is coordinated by the ICLEI European Secretariat and financed by the European Commission, Directorate-General Research.

The symposium report as well as all other conference materials will soon be available at www.iclei-europe.org/logowater.  For more information, please send an email to logowater@iclei.org.