Background

The establishment of the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission owes its origins from the water scarcity challenges that the basin states were experiencing in the early 1990s. Namibia and Botswana through their National Water Master Plans began to explore prospects for enhanced water resource capacity to maintain their socio-economic growth. Among other considerations were prospects to draw water from the Okavango, the Cunene and the Chobe rivers. Projects for water transfer were conceived to water the less endowed parts of the countries and this brought about the need for starting transboundary dialogue to propose the establishment of technical water commissions that could study water development projects and advise the respective Governments about the most appropriate course of future action.

This desire led to the re-instatement of the Permanent Joint Technical Commission (PJTC) between Angola and Namibia on the Cunene River in September 1990 and the establishment of the Joint Permanent Water Commission (JPWC) between Botswana and Namibia on water matters of mutual interest. This included the Okavango, the Zambezi, groundwater and other water related issues such as environmental protection of the Kwando–Linyanti–Chobe river system through the joint Salvinia Molesta (Kariba weed) control program.

An opportunity arose to discuss the possibility to establish such a commission for the Okavango Basin when the PJTC and the JPTC had meetings in the same week in Windhoek in June 1991. At both meetings the Namibian Delegation suggested that the possibility to establish a new water commission on the Okavango should be discussed between the Parties and due to the fact that all three Parties involved had an interest in the future development of the Okavango, time was made to fit in a joint meeting between the Parties.

The principle to establish a water commission was agreed upon and the draft agreement was accepted as a basis for further negotiation which demonstrated the commitment between the countries and their interest in the future development of the Okavango River Basin.

The OKACOM logo was designed for the Commission - the design reflecting the Cuito and Cubango rivers in Angola, flowing through Namibia to form the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Between 1994 and 2002, work of the Commission was challenged by Angola’s civil war that restricted activities in the Cubango-Okavango Basin. Nevertheless, the Commission’s members never wavered in their determination to work together to plan for joint use of the Basin’s resources, and continued to meet, rotating responsibility for organizing meetings among the three countries, and supported administratively by the countries’ water ministries.

Signing of a peace accord in 2002 meant that OKACOM could move forward with work in the Basin. The Global Environment Facility had stepped in with funding to support a Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis, and USAID came forward with a programme of interventions and administrative support through the Integrated River Basin Management project, that took OKACOM to a whole new level of functionality and established the Secretariat in Maun, Botswana.

 OKACOM Organisation Structure