L Hendricks: Unesco-HELP Southern Symposium

5 November 2007

Professor Kader Asmal, Member of Parliament
Professor Emmanuel Naah, Representative of United Nations, Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco)
Members of the Global Steering Committee for Unesco-HELP
Distinguished guests
Programme director
Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction

It is a pleasure and a privilege for me to welcome you to this important
international event: the HELP Southern Symposium 2007, which is hosted by my
department in partnership with Unesco and a number of our country's water
sector institutions. I am particularly pleased to hear that the significance of
this symposium is that it brings together academics, researchers and experts
from across all disciplines including scientists, political scientists, policy
makers, lawyers, engineers and general stakeholders to engage in a dialogue to
bring meaning to the concept of integrated catchments management.

It is about five years since the August 2002 HELP Symposium that took place
in the City of Kalmar in Sweden which looked at increasing the dialogue between
scientists, policy makers and stakeholders. Five years later today we must be
particularly excited about seeing all these sharply though misleadingly,
separated disciplines converging under one roof. This rarely happens and when
it does happen it shows that at last we are beginning to find one another and
that we shall have a holistic understanding of the true meaning of integrated
catchments of management approach.

South Africa's policy and the integrated water resources management (IWRM)
approach

As you might be aware, our country's water legislation has been globally
hailed as one of the most astute pieces of legislation, thanks to Prof Kader
Asmal (the first Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) Minister of
the democratic South Africa) who has lead a comprehensive institutional and
legislative water reforms in the formative years of our democracy.

For instance, our National Water Act (NWA) of 1998 was promulgated to
regulate the management of the country's water resources using the IWRM
approach. The regulation of the country's water resources takes place across
several dimensions that include the different components of the hydrological
system surface water, groundwater, wetlands, estuaries, etc, the co-ordinated
development and management of water, land and related resources and the
integration of environmental sustainability with statutory, economic and social
objectives.

Policy implementation successes and challenges in HELP context

One of the main objectives of the National Water Act is progressively to
decentralise responsibility and authority for water resources management to
appropriate regional and local institutions, partly in order to assist water
users and other stakeholders to participate more effectively in the management
of these resources.

However, the slow pace in implementing our water legislation and policies
reflects the complexity and difficulties that flow from the lingering legacy of
apartheid. Such complexities are made worse by a miscommunication between
policy makers, scientists and the reality on the ground.

Policy makers are trained to make human judgements whereas scientists are
trained to make scientific judgements. Naturally, both cultures are bound to
provide a one-sided view and narrow solutions. Despite all that, I can share
with you that we have made some successes in implementation of policy. Our
success in providing clean water to over 12 million people and access to
sanitation to more than nine million people is partly due to our policy makers
working in concert with researchers.

Additionally, since the promulgation of the National Water Act in 1998 we
have introduced mandatory reserve determination measures, established
stakeholder forums and bodies and established some Catchment Management
Agencies such as Crocodile-Marico, Inkomati, Mvoti and Breede. In all of these
we have been working in collaboration with the researchers and the broader
stakeholder community. While our linkages have been harmonious, we can still
improve.

The HELP Symposium, Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the
African continent

Your deliberations and debates during the course of this week will provide
an opportunity not only to showcase some of the work that has been done locally
across the globe but also reflect on how we have been doing over the past five
years. Being a country with limited water resources and more than 60% of rivers
categorised as shared watercourses we know too well how significant a holistic
approach to water management is.

I hope that the field tour to the Olifants basin which is a HELP
demonstration basin will give you a good idea of the successes and challenges.
The Olifants basin is one of the pilot projects for our water allocation reform
programme. With this programme our aim is to reallocate water in order to deal
with imbalances of the past. This water allocation reform programme does not
necessarily mean taking from the haves and giving to have-nots. As will be
demonstrated during the tour of the Olifants Basin, the aims and objectives of
our water allocation reform programme can be achieved through co-operation
between those who already have access to water and those who were denied access
due to apartheid policies.

One of the major challenges on the Olifants is the issue of pollution of
water as result of mining activities, power generation, and other land use
activities. These challenges are made worse by limited capacity to monitor and
intervene. As for the Thukela Basin, which is scheduled for the post–symposium
tour, we are looking forward to the positive impact that the results of the
integrated catchment management studies currently underway under the auspices
of the HELP programme, will bring about.

Ladies and gentlemen, I must point out that we warmly embrace new innovative
international best practices such as demonstrated by the Unesco-International
Hydrological Programme's HELP approach. It is encouraging to see that the HELP
programme cuts across many disciplines and that it is meant to bridge the gap
between scientists, policy makers, lawyers and political scientists in an
attempt to enhance the knowledge base on which decisions are made. We certainly
need to foster interdisciplinary approaches in order to achieve our broad-based
sustainable development and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Accelerated
development in Africa and the rest of the developing world can only be enhanced
through these kinds of exchanges and interactions.

Programme director, I have to commend the strong partnership and
collaboration between Unesco and South Africa especially in the area of water
resources management, which has blossomed quite dramatically over the last few
years. My department is hosting the South African National Committee for
Unesco-International Hydrological Programme (IHP) which was established in 2005
and formally inaugurated in September 2006.

Its membership spans a wide spectrum of academia, research institutions,
professional bodies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government
representatives. One of the chief responsibilities of the national committee is
to act as a co-ordinating body works with other related bodies in the region
and the world to achieve shared objectives concerning freshwater, within the
framework of the IHP. To that end, the country has assisted in the
implementation of a number of key regional IHP Programmes which were of
significance to the national interest, and these programmes include HELP,
FRIEND (Flow Regimes from International Experimental and Network Data) and
others.

Conclusion

Securing the bid to host this international HELP Symposium is further
evidence of the efforts that my department in partnership with the broader
South African water sector community has jointly put to show the international
community that we view issues of water seriously.

Additionally, Programme director, I am pleased to announce that from 10 to
12 March 2008, our IHP-National Committee will be hosting another Unesco event,
the second Africa Regional meeting of the national committees for Unesco-IHP
and the IWRM Conference in this country.

To conclude, South Africa and the developing world, mainly in the South,
generally have much to teach the developed countries (i.e. north) and on the
other hand the developing countries (i.e. south) have much to learn from the
developed countries in a two-way process. For example in the South generally
policies are in place and are aligned with the principles of Integrated Water
Resources Management. Such learning and shared experiences could greatly
benefit our attempts as a global community to improve the sustainable
management of our water resources in a truly integrated manner.

I wish you a very successful conference and I shall be keenly waiting the
outcomes at the conclusion of the conference.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Water Affairs and Forestry
5 November 2007