An inception workshop for USAID’s Southern Africa Regional Environmental Programme (SAREP) Project began a new programme of support to the Permanent Okavango River Basin Commission (OKACOM) on October 7th and 8th 2010 in Gaborone, Botswana.
The SAREP Programme is a second phase of work begun by USAID’s Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) Programme that, among other activities, supported OKACOM’s Interim Secretariat between 2004 and 2008. Implemented by Chemonics International with its partners — Bergstan (Pty), Ecosurv (Pty) Ltd., Social Impact Assessment and Policy Analysis Corporation (Pty) Ltd. (SIAPAC), and the University of Florida’s Department of Geography -- SAREP will work with OKACOM and regional counterparts to improve trans-boundary natural resource management in the Okavango River Basin.
Amongst SAREP’s objectives are to:
• Protect Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Activities will have biodiversity conservation as an explicit objective, address threats to biodiversity in biologically significant areas and have associated indicators for biodiversity conservation.
• Build Capacity for Water Governance: Strengthen cooperation and capacity of regional institutions to implement the SADC, Protocol and to promote public participation in integrated water resource development and management while protecting ecosystem health and sustainability
• Support Basin-level Plans and Priorities: Work with OKACOM and its related structures to enable key planned activities to be implemented, where possible.
• Integrate Transboundary Infrastructure and Land Use Planning: Improve design, implementation, operation and sustainable maintenance of water supply and sanitation services (WSS).
SAREP will operate from a headquarters office in Gaborone and a local office in Maun, Botswana.
For more information contact: Mr Steve Johnson, sjohnson@sarep.co.bw or Geof Khwarae, gkhwarae@sarep.co.bw.
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