Science, Water and Sanitation: Supporting Equitable and Sustainable Development in southern Africa

Abstract

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region faces a number of challenges in ensuring water for equitable and sustainable development. In most of these countries water resources infrastructure is underdeveloped, and significant climate variability means economic sustainability and development is hostage to rainfall. The aim of this policy-makers’ booklet is to outline the role that science academies can play in assisting policy-makers and managers to address some of the key water challenges in the southern African region. This is part of a process of building a strong partnership between the science community and government actors. It is intended to be useful to policy-makers in the water sector, and to policy-makers in those sectors that are major water users, such as the agricultural, industrial and mining sectors, as well as those with a mandate to protect the natural environment and whose policies and decisions impact directly or indirectly on water quantity, quality and accessibility. The booklet is focused on six countries, namely Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa and Namibia, each of which has an established science academy, or one that is in the process of being established. However, the messages in this booklet are relevant to the broader southern African region as a whole. This booklet should resonate with policy-makers in the southern Africa region, and together with other similar studies from East, West and North Africa, present an overview of water issues in the continent. The main aim will be to inform the African Ministers’ Committee on Water (AMCOW) and other political and technical leadership in the continent.