1. Prof Mike Muller
Graduate School of Public and
Development Management
Wits University
Presentation given at IHP-HELP Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, under the auspices of UNESCO, 21 st June 2011

2. What is meant by water security?
 Household?
 Reliable services
 Health
 Community?
 Resilience to disasters
 Vulnerability of economy
 National?
 survival of the state and nation?
 Environmental?
 Ecological survival, from local to planet

3. Framing the issue
A definition of water security
 ‘the reliable availability of an acceptable quantity and
quality of water for health, livelihoods and production,
coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks.’
Grey and Sadoff (2007).
 Not the same as ‘food security’ and ‘energy security’,
 reliable access to sufficient supplies.
 water security also captures destructive aspects of water
 floods and droughts

4. Water management is a complex business
Flood line –
Water for agriculture development Water for nature conservation –
– commercial cane constraint National park
Offtake for sugar mill and village
Weir, interferes with Onward flow to poor
(return channel, warm treated
environmental function people & neighbors
water, just downstream)

5. The regional water challenges
 Southern African countries already water stressed
 Likely to get worse, with climate and population
 Conflict inevitable
 Aggravating the challenges:-
 External land and water grabbing ,
 Biofuels promotion
 Loss of ecosystem services making people poorer
 Corruption will exacerbate situation

6. It’s already happening
 Conflict has happened:-
 invasion of Lesotho by South Africa
 Botswana and Namibia sabre-rattling over Okavango
 Dams and displaced people are a major problem
 China in Angola and Zambia
 Colonising land and water as well as minerals
 Corruption has undermined cooperation
 Lesotho and elsewhere

7. Part of the problem ?

8. Is population
pressure on
water an
issue?
Water stressed 2025
Water stressed 1990

9. Is drought, variability a problem?
Droughts risk and vulnerability
(economic loss, as a proportion of GDP density)
UNEP/GRID-Arendal, Droughts - risk and vulnerability (economic loss, as a proportion of GDP density), UNEP/GRID-Arendal Maps and Graphics Library,

10. Who has the water?
And is availability
a problem?

11. Who has the water?
Country Country ????
Angola
Botswana Least water
Lesotho
Malawi
Mozambique
Namibia
South Africa
Swaziland
Zambia Most water
Zimbabwe

12. Who has the water?
Water
Country Availability
Angola 10510 South Africa 1110
Least water
Botswana 6820 Malawi 1400
Lesotho 1680 Zimbabwe 1550
Malawi 1400 Lesotho 1680
Mozambique 11320 Swaziland 4160
Botswana 6820
Namibia 8810
Namibia 8810
South Africa 1110
Zambia 9630
Swaziland 4160
Angola 10510
Zambia 9630 Most water
Mozambique 11320
Zimbabwe 1550
M3/p/yr
Source: UN WWDR 2006

13. COUNTRY Water m3/p/yr
Gaza strip 41
Singapore 139
Who has Rwanda
Egypt
610
790
Kenya 930
the water? South Africa 1110
Denmark 1120
Korea, s 1450
Eritrea 1470
Ethiopia 1680
China 2140
Burundi 2190
United Kingdom 2460
Uganda 2470
Swaziland 4160
Botswana 6820
Namibia 8810
Zambia 9630
Mozambique 11320
DRC 23850

14. Who uses their water?
Country AVAILABILITY M3 P/C USE %
Angola 10510 0.2
Botswana 6820 1
Lesotho 1680 2
Malawi 1400 6
Mozambique 11320 0.3
Namibia 8810 2
South Africa 1110 31
Swaziland 4160 18
Zambia 9630 2
Zimbabwe 1584 13
DRC 23850 0.03

15. Or is money the problem?

16. The Southern African challenge
 Low-equilibrium traps and poverty
 Many of the traps are externally set
 Hydropower and infrastructure blocks
 Environmental conventions
 External dependence
 Conflict provoked

17. “PRAGMATIC” “PRESCRIPTIVE”
DIMENSION RIO DUBLIN
Competing water
Economic management
Nature of water Economic and social good Economic good paradigms:
Priority of economic instruments Economic instruments balanced High priority for economic
Priority setting by social considerations instruments
Role of private sector Within national economic Stakeholder participation, The differences
development policy economic instruments between Rio and
Major role for government, High priority for role of private
recognition of private role sector, limited government
Dublin
Characterised as:- Developmental Washington Consensus
Institutional, national
Institutional objectives Importance of national Focus on “enabling
environment”
Water’s Washington Consensus
Participatory approaches development strategies
Governance Where there is clear demand Heavy emphasis on participatory
Appropriate institutions approaches
Performance based institutions
Characterised as:- Public administration New Public Management
Institutional, international:
Transboundary approaches Basin specific approaches River basin organisations EX:
Institutionalisation of global United Nations system World Water Council outside
water inter-governmental domain
Muller M, Fit for
Characterised as:- Multilateralism continued Retreat from multilateralism
purpose: taking
integrated water
Environmental
resource management
Infrastructure Infrastructure development, a “Development” deleted
back to basics
Decision making key element Emphasis on “full stakeholder
River basin organisation (RBO) Effective implementation and participation” Irrigation and Drainage
coordination required RBO the most appropriate entity Systems: Volume 24,
Manage “in basin context” Issue 3 (2010), Page 161.
Characterised as:- Balance needs of people and Ecosystem approach
environment

18. Water’s Washington Consensus

19. So what are the real security
challenges?
 Failure to develop the resource
 Mozambique, Zambia, Angola
 (Okavango, Zambesi)
 Hydropower, agriculture,
 Variability and uncertainty
 Hydrological variability (floods and droughts)
 Developmental uncertainty (Angola & Zambia worries)
 Failure to develop the society
 Domestic water security
 Poverty

20. World potential and current
hydropower production, 2004

21. How water resource development &
management supports economies
Flow Management and
Infrastructure interventions
Maximum flood flow
Maximum flood flow
Reliable Flow
Reliable Flow Time

22. Reliable
supplies =
More investment and
greater productivity

23. SA, a potential regional predator?
 Must South Africa look to its neighbours to meet
future water needs?
 What are the regional cooperation and security
implications?

24. Evolution of SA economy’s water supply “footprint”
Next, the Zambezi?!
1890s local springs
1982 Tugela-Vaal
1902 Rand Water - Zuurbekom pumped
transfer/storage
1923 Vaal Barrage
1938 Vaal Dam
1998 Lesotho Highlands Phase 1a
2004 Lesotho Highlands Phase 1b
2020 Lesotho Highlands Phase 2

25. Vaal River system – Zambesi next?
Vaal River Augmentation Options
25
Desalination of seawater
(13.2)
Zambezi-Vaal transfer
(4.2)
20
(4.4)
Marginal Cost - URV (R/m3)
Mzimvubu-Vaal transfer
15
Thukela-Vaal transfer
(Phased Mielietuin
10 (3.4) & Jana Dams)
Use of acid mine drainage (2.4) Orange-Vaal transfer
(2.5)
(0.0) (Boskraai Dam with
phased pipelines)
5 LHWP Phase II
(Polihali Dam) Legend
(0.85) - Unit energy requirement
kWh/m3 of raw water
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
3
Volume (million m /a)

26. Evolution of system’s water “footprint” - waste
Next, the Zambezi?! 2010 Waste to
Lephalale &
Limpopo
1890s local springs
1982 Tugela-Vaal
1902 Rand Water - Zuurbekom pumped
1970s Waste transfer/storage
1923 Vaal Barrage from
Gauteng
to Crocodile
1938 Vaal Dam
1998 Lesotho Highlands Phase 1a
2004 Lesotho Highlands Phase 1b
2020 Lesotho Highlands Phase 2

27. Is SA a potential predator?
 Costs
 Lesotho Ph2 R6/kl
 Wastewater to Lephalale R8/kl (mainly transport)
 Zambesi water R23/kl?
 Desalination at coast R4/kl and falling
 Water for the economy
 Singapore 150kl/person/year
 South Africa 1200 kl/person/year

28. Some real issues
 20 years, since Rio, countries been denied access to
infrastructure funding (Water’s Washington Consensus)
 Constrained by internationally imposed environmental
conventions (e.g. RAMSAR)
 Denied pathways that rich countries used
 Ignored evidence that environment can be rehabilitated
 Kuznets curve
 Rhine, Danube, US Great Lakes
 Hydropower

29. Benefits of cooperation
 LESOTHO: sale of gravity and rental of land (not water)
 15% of government budget ,
 SWAZILAND: cooperation treaty
 aid for agriculture prize (LUSIP) (alternatives to sugar ?)
 MOZAMBIQUE: Cabora Bassa
 Funded electrification of country
 ZIMBABWE, ZAMBIA:
 still getting power from Kariba

30. Infrastructure project impacts ….
Katse Dam, Lesotho
TCTA Trip to Katse and Mohale
Feb/Mar 2003 30

31. …. can be mitigated : Mohale resettlement
TCTA Trip to Katse and Mohale
Feb/Mar 2003 31

32. Cooperation in water in 2002…
2002: The WSSD WaterDome, birthplace of historical Incomaputo
agreement
“Swaziland, Mozambique, and South Africa made water history for the African
continent when they signed a water-sharing agreement governing the use of
two of their shared rivers. The Interim IncoMaputo Agreement, which involves
the Incomati and Maputo rivers, provides significant benefits to all three
nations. The agreement immediately unlocked financial support for a major
new irrigation development in Swaziland, the Lower Usuthu Smallholder
Irrigation Project, which will create direct employment for 10,000 people
through the development of over 11,000 hectares, providing much needed

33. … produces food and livelihoods
LUSIP, Swaziland, in 2010

34. About water wars...
“The wars of the next century will be for water”,
“unless we change the way we manage water”.
Ismael Serageldin, 1996
Former VP Sustainable Development, World Bank
Founder of the World Water Council
Head of the Alexandria Library

35. Napoleon’s African water
management lesson:
 Under a good government, the Nile gains on
the desert
 Under a bad government, the desert gains on
the Nile

36. Conclusions
 To achieve water security, need
 Investments in infrastructure to store and transport water, treat
and reuse waste water
 robust institutions, able to take and implement decisions
 information and the capacity to predict, plan and cope
 Many societies want to move beyond water security
 to take advantage of benefits derived from wise water use
 “water for growth and development”
 “land and water grabs” and threat, while
 Biofuels displace food ... or
 Better live & livelihoods as well as products and profits?
 Much of Africa still needs to achieve basic water security
 But also needs growth and development

37. Conclusions
 Perceptions are often wrong, conclusions not
supported by evidence
 Lead to inappropriate policy reponses
 In world of sovereign and dependent countries,
 Southern Africa dependent over past two decades
 External policy has ignored
local preferences
 Imposed external preferences
 Ignored historical evidence

38. Conclusions
 Challenges
 Financial resources
 Climate variability and change
 Response
 Help region to manage water in support of its
sustainable development
 Support infrastructure development
 Some climate funding to water management
 Will
 Help countries to achieve development goals,
 Make them more resilient to eventual climate change

39. Thank you!