BACK	SOUTHERN AFRICA: A Region Worries About Water

That danger has been admitted at various levels, including the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a supranational organisation that groups 14 regional countries.

''It is perhaps worth underscoring the fact water scarcity and the concomitant reliance on shared rivers can be a potential source of conflict at various levels,'' says Lengolo Monyake, SADC's deputy executive secretary.

South African development economist Ruth Motau thinks that as the sub-region's population grows and economies develop, water is likely to become the single most important issue in the next century.

SADC, which groups Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, accounts for at least 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's gross domestic product, and is home to nearly a third of its people.

But the countries of the sub-region have insufficient water, barring exceptions such as the DRC, which -- along with Seychelles -- joined SADC in the second half of 1997. Studies indicate that within the next 10 to 30 years, water will be scarce in at least eight of the 14: Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Botswana, Namibia and South Africa are already experiencing what is known as ''water stress'': i.e. their freshwater resources are between 1,000 and 1,600 cubic meters (M3) per person -- 1,000 M3 per capita is considered the danger point.

South Africa's national water policy describes it as an arid country with rainfall lower than the world average: there are only 1200 kilolitres of water available for each South African - less than in drier countries such as Namibia and Botswana.

The water policy seeks to ensure that South Africa survives well into the future, despite its meager water resources. It provides a framework whereby water consumers (both household and industrial) will pay for the cost, in the form of levies, of managing water catchment areas.

The eradication of alien vegetation, the rehabilitation of degraded water resources and the administrative costs of catchment management agencies are some of the things the levies would be used to fund.

Namibia is by far the most arid of the Southern African countries. It is threatened by drought and desperately needs water.

While the population of the capital, Windhoek, has grown from 130,000 to 220,000 since independence seven years ago, its annual consumption of 17 million cubic metres has not increased significantly since then. Yet, its residents have had to use water ever more sparingly. Their efforts to cut back on water use recently achieved a 30-percent saving.

Namibia's President Sam Nujoma has revealed that his government is considering taking water from the Congo River to supply central Namibia. According to him, a pipeline could be built to carry water from where the river enters the Atlantic Ocean to the Okavango River and onwards to the Eastern Water Carrier. He estimates that the Congo-Okavango pipeline would be less than 1,000 kilometres long.

Namibia is currently negotiating drawing an estimated 20 million cubic metres of water annually from the Okavango river system which it shares with its eastern neighbour, Botswana, and Angola. ''The severity of Namibia's water crisis left it with little option but to investigate drawing water from the Okavango,'' says Richard Fry, the country's deputy permanent secretary for Water Affairs.

The water from the Okavango would be transported hundreds of miles across desert land by a combination of pipeline and aqueduct to the country's central region and Windhoek. The project is believed to have caught the interest of a number of external support agencies and countries. The German, Japanese and Chinese governments are said to be keen to fund it.

Fry says the Congo water idea would certainly be considered even if the Okavango pipeline link went ahead. According to him, the possibility of drawing water from the Congo River was investigated in 1996 and the idea was not ''out of this world''.

Known as the ''jewel of the Kalahari'', the Okavango Delta is Botswana's prime tourist attraction. It is world famous for its prolific wildlife and spectacular natural beauty.

The Okavango River originates in the Benguela plateau in Angola and drains through the Namibian Caprivi strip into the northern part of landlocked Botswana, which plays host to large parts of the Kalahari desert.

In Botswana, the Okavango's waters turn what would otherwise be an extension of the Kalahari into one of the world's largest inland wetlands, long prized as one of Africa's greatest natural paradises. A robust and resilient ecosystem, the Okavango Delta is home to over 100,000 people, who depend on it for their livelihood, and a vast range of plant and animal species.

''We could not live without the Okavango,'' says Samboma Tshimologo, who sells an estimated 150,000 baskets made of palm leaves to tourists there each year.

''The delta can survive any mishap, except the water being turned off,'' says Brian Daniels, a water resource specialist. He says only half of Namibia's available groundwater resources are currently being used, but that the country's authorities do not appear to be considering increasing that amount as an alternative. (END/IPS/JB/KB/98)