From June 2012 to December 2017, the USAID-funded Resilience in the Limpopo Basin Program (RESILIM) contributed to significant advances in water management, biodiversity, and climate change adaptation across an area of Southern Africa as large as Sweden that is home to 18 million people.
From June 2012 to December 2017, the USAID-funded Resilience in the Limpopo Basin Program (RESILIM) contributed to significant advances in water management, biodiversity, and climate change adaptation across an area of Southern Africa as large as Sweden that is home to 18 million people.
The objective of the Resilience in the Limpopo Basin Program (RESILIM) of USAID Southern Africa is to enhance the resilience of people and ecosystems in the Limpopo Basin Program (LRB) by strengthening the capacity of the Limpopo Watercourse Commission (LIMCOM), and its key stakeholders, to address issues of climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation within the context of trans-boundary integrated water resources management (IWRM).
Resilience in the Limpopo Basin (RESILIM) | 2012–2017
River basins in southern Africa, like river basins around the world, are under threat from increasing water use and shifting rainfall patterns, which are exaggerating flood and drought cycles and degrading water quality. It is hard enough for one country to adapt to these changing conditions, but most of the world’s water basins — 263 lake and river basins, covering almost half of the earth’s nonocean surface — cross national boundaries. To ensure that collaboration rather than competition wins out in basin management, neighboring countries need to work together.
This Exposure story describes efforts of the USAID Resilience in the Limpopo River Basin (RESILIM) project to protect the Marico River catchment, one of eleven sub-catchments that form the Limpopo River Basin. RESILIM (2012–2020) works Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe f to preserve the health of the Limpopo River.
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People living in the Limpopo River Basin in Southern Africa face water shortages, increased floods, and declines in crop productivity as climate change further stresses an already water limited region. Trans-boundary cooperation and action is needed to prevent further degradation of critical river ecosystems, to secure biodiversity and ecosystem services, and to support robust livelihoods in the basin.
The Limpopo River basin is one of the most vulnerable transboundary basins in the Southern African region, because of water scarcity and climate-related risks, as well as in its limited capacity to adapt. Water Demand Management (WDM) can reduce these risks through conservation and re-use of water resources.
The CLTS process has reached a point in its implementation through SAREP that we are now able to introduce monitoring, evaluation (M&E) and ODF verification and Certification processes into the training. This toolkit and manual contains all forms and materials that are need for a CLTS monitoring team to be established in communities.
The southern Africa countries of Angola, Namibia, and Botswana suffer from frequent floods and debilitating droughts, and too many people live in extreme poverty and have limited access to adequate water and sanitation services. The USAID Southern African Regional Environmental Program (SAREP) is addressing these issues by improving the water supply and sanitation services, as well as conserving biodiversity within the Okavango River Basin, which supports the livelihoods of more than 880,000 people.
