Waterway Pollution: Building Blocks for a SADC transboundary strategy for healthy rivers from Source to Sea - GWPSA Open Special Session

Conveners

GWPSA

Co-Conveners

INMACOM, CUVEKOM, Kunene PJTC, LIMCOM

Southern Africa's rivers, lakes, wetlands, groundwater systems, and coastal ecosystems are increasingly threatened by pollution from multiple sources: industrial effluents, mining tailings, untreated wastewater, agricultural runoff, and diffuse land-based pollutants linked to land degradation. Groundwater, which sustains millions of people across the region for domestic use, irrigation, and ecosystem baseflows, is particularly vulnerable to nitrate leaching, pesticide residues, and industrial seepage. Once contaminated, aquifers are costly and often impossible to restore, making prevention and monitoring critical.

Events such as harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the Limpopo River Basin, mining-related toxic spills in the Kafue and Shashe, and industrial accidents in the Msunduzi/uMngeni highlight the scale of risk. Chronic eutrophication in Lake Chivero, Vaal, Hartbeespoort and other reservoirs demonstrates long-term systemic pressures. In parallel, groundwater contamination hotspots for example around urban centres, intensive agriculture zones, and mining belts are often under-monitored, yet equally transboundary in nature. These incidents underscore the need for a coordinated, regional strategy that integrates river basin governance, science-based monitoring, pollution prevention, and emergency response protocols. Such a strategy must align with SADC's transboundary water management agenda and SDG 6.3 (reducing water pollution). There are positive examples of tools emerging to counter these emergent risks, such as incentive based reporting systems as well as stringent litigation. These problems are not isolated. They are compounded by land-based drivers such as soil erosion, nutrient loading, and deforestation. The Southern Africa Great Green Wall Initiative offers opportunities to link watershed restoration and land management with water quality improvement. Similarly, Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) and downstream marine ecosystems are already experiencing the cumulative effects of inland pollution, from toxins and sediments to plastics underscoring the source-to-sea imperative.

The SADC Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses commits Member States to the no harm principle and cooperative management. River Basin Organisations (RBOs) have developed Transboundary Diagnostic Analyses (TDAs) and Strategic Action Plans (SAPs) that already identify surface water and groundwater quality deterioration as a pressing regional threats. The Revised SADC Regional Water Policy has also provided key intentions which explicitly seeks to integrate groundwater management alongside surface water, recognizing emerging issues such as climate change, groundwater depletion, and pollution. The revised policy underscores the need for robust environmental monitoring frameworks, standardized indicators, transparent data, and cross-border reporting. The policy further reasserts that protection of the environment should be pursued through appropriate user charges and enforcement of the polluter-pays principle, with due attention to equity and social justice; commitment to inter-sectoral cooperation (environment, agriculture, mining, industrial sectors) to control both point-source and diffuse pollution. The Regional Water Policy includes policy statements about accessing funding and resources, including mobilising financial and technical resources to support water sector programmes and encouragement for using incentive mechanisms, user charges, and other financial instruments to support environmental protection and pollution control.

Building on these processes, the region now needs an integrated framework that:

• operationalises environmental monitoring frameworks and data-sharing protocols across basins,
• strengthens compliance and governance mechanisms,
• ensures effective implementation of SAP commitments,
• prevents and mitigates pollution at source, and

secures sustainable financing, including polluter-pays mechanisms, pollution levies, and private sector engagement.

Strategic Areas to Address

1. Governance and accountability: Anchoring strategy in the SADC Protocol's no harm principle.

Clarifying institutional roles and compliance mechanisms and operationalising RBO SAP commitments.

1. Monitoring and data sharing: Regional Environmental monitoring frameworks with agreed parameters standardised indicators. Data-sharing protocols across Member States and RBOs. Integration of ecosystem service valuation into decision-making.
2. Pollution prevention and land-based sources: Tackling diffuse pollution from agriculture, soil erosion, and land degradation. Linking water quality interventions with the Southern Africa Great Green Wall Initiative Pillars. Compliance and understanding standards for industrial and mining discharges.
3. Source-to-Sea integration: Connecting river pollution management with TFCAs, estuaries, and coastal ecosystems. Addressing plastics and toxins that flow from headwaters to marine areas (source to sea approach)
4. Emergency response protocols Developing shared regional guidelines for toxic spills, mining accidents, and HAB events.
5. Financing and partnerships: Implementing pollution taxes and polluter-pays principles (as per AIP Pyramid). Exploring blended finance and private sector partnerships in water site. Building regional investment programmes aimed at prevention and restoration.

Session Objectives

The objective of this session is to define collaboratively with SADC River Basin Organisations, riparian states and their research and development and cooperation partners, the core components of a regional pollution prevention and response framework. It will focus on solutions and financing pathways, not just incidents, to inform a practical regional strategy for transboundary rivers, linked to land management and marine ecosystems. This will be done through the following sub-objectives

• Assessing the scale, patterns, and impacts of recent and chronic water pollution across SADC.
• Identifying critical gaps in mitigation, monitoring, governance, and emergency response.
• Sharing case studies and scientific insights to ground strategic intervention.
• Outlining actionable priority actions: collaboration, funding pathways, pilot projects, and policy, governance and institutional alignment.

Session Outcomes:

• Consensus on the core components of a regional waterway pollution strategy.(based on a common understanding of waterway pollution)
• Agreed priorities for governance, monitoring, financing, and source-to-sea integration.
• Commitment to advance SAP implementation, supported by data-sharing and joint monitoring.
• Defined roadmap for developing and resourcing the strategy, including pilots that link terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

Session key words:

Transboundary water management, ambient water quality monitoring, point source and diffuse water pollution, eutrophication, harmful algal blooms (HABs), pollution prevention, compliance, emergency response, source-to-sea

Expected participants:

SADC Water Division, SADC RBOs, Coastal and Marine Management agencies, National Water Ministries & Water Regulators, Water Utilities, Environmental Management Agencies, Environmental

NGOs & Conservation Organizations (e.g., WWF, TNC), Academic & Research Institutions, Civil Society & Communities Development & Cooperating Partners

Session Chair: INMACOM, Ms Sindy Mthimkhulu

Session Rapporteur – GWPSA

Session Agenda