Integrated Water Governance Support System

Effective and efficient governance of transboundary water resources is a critical pre-requisite for sustainable development, poverty reduction and nature conservation in the Southern Africa region. Specifically, governance of transboundary water resources in the adjacent Kruger National Park (South Africa) and Limpopo National Park (Mozambique) has significant impacts on both livelihoods activities of local communities (tourism, fishery, agriculture), and also on the supply of numerous other non-provisioning natural ecosystem goods and services. Presently, there is a severe overexploitation of the water resources flowing to the national parks at the expense of their essential ecological functions. The reasons behind this are numerous, among which inadequate transboundary governance mechanisms and lack of implementation capacities feature prominently. Taking the above into account, this project studies the ways to improve the transboundary water governance as an essential component of the natural ecosystems governance in the Kruger and Limpopo national parks.

The project assesses the challenges and opportunities for transboundary water governance, evaluates the transaction costs and benefits of optimizing the transboundary water governance, and conducts implementation research, focusing on various stakeholders and actors involved\relevant for transboundary governance.