In response to severe drought and ongoing water scarcity, Zambia has joined the UN Water Convention to improve water management both within and across its borders. The country, which declared a National Crisis and Emergency in February 2024 due to a drought that has severely impacted food and energy production for its population of over 21 million people, sits within the cross-border Zambezi and Congo River basins.
Zambia is the 55th country (and 12th from Africa) to join the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (UN Water Convention), following closely the accessions of Cote D’Ivoire and Zimbabwe in July. This further consolidates the strong momentum for water cooperation in Africa, where more than 90% of freshwater rivers, lakes and aquifers are shared by two or more countries.
Secretary to the Water Convention, Ms Sonja Koeppel, highlighted that “Zambia’s accession to the Convention is a significant milestone for the country in its strategic efforts on multiple fronts towards collectively strengthening its transboundary water cooperation.” Ms Koeppel further noted that Zambia will now be celebrated on the global stage as a new Party to the Convention during the 10th session of the Meeting of the Parties (MOP) to the Water Convention, to be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia (23-25 October 2024), which is expected to further catalyze the momentum for accession to the Convention across the world.
Honourable Engineer Collins Nzovu, MP, Minister of Water Development and Sanitation of Zambia, recognized that “Zambia’s accession to the United Nations Water Convention is a strong instrument to help us reach water-related sustainable development goals and to support global adaptation action which will lead to enhanced bilateral and multilateral cooperation in transboundary water resources management particularly now as we face the devastating effects of climate change in the region”.
Southern Africa is facing extreme water stress where several countries have declared national drought emergencies in the past year. Alongside Namibia as the first Party in the region in 2023 and Zimbabwe in 2024, as well as Botswana and Tanzania currently in accession processes and Malawi having indicated its readiness to start the process, this creates the enabling conditions for others to join and maximize the relevance and usefulness of the UN Water Convention and its related tools.
The UN Water Convention is an effective global legal and intergovernmental framework and unique platform within the UN system (serviced by UNECE) to support cooperation and sustainable management of shared waters, including groundwaters. Accession can enable support by the community of Parties, experience-sharing with basins and countries worldwide, and facilitate access to financing.
The recent results of the 3rd reporting exercise measuring progress to achieve SDG indicator 6.5.2 on transboundary water cooperation further demonstrate Zambia’s commitment to strengthen transboundary cooperation over increasingly scarce shared water resources, improving from having 70% of all its shared basins covered by operational agreements for cooperation in 2020, to 77.7% in 2023. Despite this progress, challenges remain, and the Water Convention can help, specifically via its Programme of Work and associated tools and guidance materials.
Joining the Convention is part of several strategic efforts Zambia is undertaking to strengthen its transboundary water cooperation and tackle multiple inter-linked water challenges which includes recovery from a cholera outbreak in late 2023.
Zambia is already a party to several basin agreements and a member State of the associated river basin organisations-including Zambezi River Authority (ZRA), Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) and Lake Tanganyika Authority (LTA). Since 2022, the Convention has also been assisting Zambia to become a Party to the Commission Internationale du Bassin Congo-Oubangui-Sangha (CICOS). Zambia is also a party to the 2000 Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses.
The Water Convention has also facilitated the First round of Technical & Planning Negotiations of the Draft ‘Agreement on the Establishment of the Luapula River and Lake Mweru Authority” between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia in April 2024
In addition, in December 2023, Zambia, Ghana and Hungary embarked on a Convention Twinning Initiative that aimed to support accession and also involves transboundary water allocation, hydro-diplomacy among its technical areas of cooperation.