Background:
Water is one of the most important natural resources of Lesotho and the water sector encompass almost all aspects of life, the economy and the natural environment. The unique geographic location, high altitude and pristine natural quality of the mountain areas position Lesotho as the ‘Water Tower’ of southern Africa. The sustainability of water resources is threatened by degradation of the catchment areas. Land and water resources cannot be easily separated or managed independently of one another. This implies that coordinated and integrated planning is required and this can be achieved by instigating Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) approach within the country. The establishment of Integrated Catchment Management is regarded as the most important challenge in relation to water resources management – especially in view of the challenges presented by the changing climate conditions with chances of more prolonged droughts and heavy rains. The complexity of implementing ICM is also exacerbated by multifaceted issues of land use patterns and the varied roles played by stakeholders, communities and government.
Integrated Catchment Management includes measures to guarantee water quantity and quality in the entire catchment, such as protection of sources of water (e.g. wetlands), buffering of run-off (e.g. vegetation cover) and water quality (e.g. effluent control). It also includes measures to satisfy demand, such as water for irrigation, industrial use and household consumption.
Global objective:
contributing towards effective implementation of Integrated Catchment Management in Lesotho through following up on previous operationalisation of the ICM framework, including improved coordination among relevant stakeholders in line with the Long-term Water and Sanitation Strategy.
The specific objectives are to:
- Further support the institutional and legal reforms for operationalising the ICM Framework, both at national level and at catchment level and based on the established ICM organogram
- Decide for each level of the organogram the required expertise needed and formulate key job descriptions. A gap analysis (also for the pilot sub-catchments) and recommendations on training and / or recruitment is to be made
- Contribute to development of catchment management plans for each of the prioritised pilot catchments including watershed improvement plans of action and tentative budgets
- Support the Lesotho Department of Water Affairs (DWA) in undertaking the identification, organisation, initial needs assessment, surveys, and planning cycle with pilot communities
- Support DWA on the development of a holistic nationally accepted and community based participatory watershed planning guideline, to be approved by the National Inter-Ministerial Catchment Committee (NICMC)
- Support DWA in preparing a draft communication strategy guideline
- Identify key capacity needs in the Department of Water Affairs, and support the process of capacitating the Department to enable it to optimally play its role in ICM.