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Thupeyo Muleya-Beitbridge Bureau

ZIMBABWE’s Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement, Dr Anxious Jongwe Masuka Ministers will next week meet with his counterparts from Botswana, Mozambique, and South Africa to discuss a raft of issues and recommit their support to deepening transboundary cooperation in the Limpopo River Basin.

The meeting will be held on 14 March and is being coordinated by the Limpopo Watercourse Commission (LIMCOM).

The organisation was established through the LIMCOM Agreement signed in November 2003 by the four Member States, in Maputo, Mozambique.

The main objective of LIMCOM is to advise and provide recommendations on the uses of the Limpopo, its tributaries, and its waters for purposes and measures of protection, preservation, and management of the Limpopo.

In a statement on Friday, LIMCOM said, during the meeting, the Ministers will sign the Amendment to the LIMCOM Agreement.

“This will formalise the establishment of the Council of Ministers as the LIMCOM’s main policy and decision-making body on transboundary water resources development and management issues in the Limpopo River Basin,” said the LIMCOM in the statement.

“Article 4 of the LIMCOM Agreement signed in November 2003 did not initially include the Council of Ministers. Therefore, the formalisation of the Council of Ministers as the main policy body will improve the governance structure of LIMCOM and its Secretariat.

Furthermore, it will foster closer cooperation for judicious, sustainable and coordinated management, protection, and utilisation of shared watercourses in line with the 2000 Revised SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses.”

The organisation said at the same gathering, the four ministers will also officially launch the flagship project for LIMCOM titled “Integrated Transboundary River Basin Management for the Sustainable Development of the Limpopo River Basin (UNDP-GEF Limpopo project).”

This project is being implemented in partnership with the Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWPSA), with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

It is expected to, through the Global Environment Facility International Waters program (GEF-IW), uplift the living standards of the basin’s population and conserve the basin’s resources and ecosystem services, through several interventions to be executed at the community level.

LIMCOM said one of the key highlights of the project is the formulation of the Limpopo Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA), which will see Member States agree on a set of transboundary priorities for the basin to guide both transboundary and national investments in the future, through a Strategic Action Plan (SAP).

“Another important activity for the Ministers will be the approval of various LIMCOM Governance and Policy documents that provide the necessary guidance to corporate operational governance of the LIMCOM Secretariat with regard to administration and financial management, as well as human resources policy management and procurement and assets management,” it said.

As part of the Musina programme, the four cabinet ministers’ engagement will be preceded by the meeting of the Legal and Technical Task Teams on 12 March 2024 and a Commissioners Meeting on 13 March 2024.

The Limpopo River Basin (LRB) is one of the major river basins in southern Africa, and it is shared by four countries namely Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Its catchment area is estimated at 412,000 km² and the basin has a population of over 18 million people.

The Limpopo River flows north from South Africa, where it creates the border between South Africa and Botswana and then the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe, before crossing into Mozambique and draining into the Indian Ocean.

In addition, the basin supports diverse socio-economic activities in the four countries including agro-industry, large-scale irrigation, rain-fed subsistence agriculture, mining, eco-tourism, and hosts some of the world’s foremost protected areas and biodiversity hotspots. X @tupeyo