Financing Partner: Global Environment Facility (GEF)
Implementing Agency: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in South Africa
Executing Agency: Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWPSA)
Duration: 2023-2027
Project Value: USD 6 million
Focal Custodian : Limpopo Watercourse Commission (LIMCOM)
Geographical Location: Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe
The Limpopo River Basin (LRB) is home to an estimated 18 million people in the four Riparian States that share the basin namely Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Projections are that the population will reach over 20 million by 2040, putting more pressure on the transboundary water resources that support various socioeconomic activities in the four countries.
The Limpopo River Basin
The “Integrated Transboundary River Basin Management for the Sustainable Development of the Limpopo River Basin,” project seeks to achieve integrated, cross-sectoral, ecosystem-based management of the Limpopo River to uplift the living standards of the basin’s population and conserve the basin’s resources and ecosystem services. The project contributes to Objective 3 of the GEF International Waters (IW) Focal Area Strategy, which is to “enhance water security in shared freshwater ecosystem.”
Project Objectives
To achieve its goal of uplifting the living standards of the basin’s population and conserving the basin’s resources and ecosystem services, the project will undertake a suite of activities designed to strengthen joint management and planning capacity and practices at the transboundary basin level.
Project Components
The project intervention logic is structured around five main components:
Component 1: Capacity Building of LIMCOM and its Member States for joint planning and the basin-wide Strategic Action Programme (SAP) and IWRM implementation
Component 2: Filling critical knowledge gaps to support joint planning and future development scenario analysis.
Component 3: Informed Strategic Planning and Decision Making to implement the basin-wide IWRM (Science-toGovernance).
Component 4: Participatory IWRM Sustainable Land Management (SLM) implementation pilots.
Component 5: Knowledge exchange with other River Basin Organizations and information sharing for replication and upscaling.
Implementing Arrangements
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in South Africa, together with the Global Water Partnership-Southern Africa (GWPSA), is supporting the project, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). As the GEF implementing entity, the UNDP provides overall oversight of the project with GWPSA being the executing agency, while the Limpopo Watercourse Commission (LIMCOM) is the focal custodian of the project implementation.
For more information, read the "Integrated Transboundary River Basin Management for the Sustainable Development of the Limpopo River Basin” project t brief :
More incomation on the projects progres is found on the LIMCOM website