The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has approved a $9.45 million grant for a regional project led by the African Development Bank Group to strengthen climate resilience, ecosystem protection, and cooperative water governance in the Zambezi River Basin, one of Africa’s most vital shared freshwater systems.
The Zambezi River Basin spans eight Southern African countries—Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—and supports more than 51 million people through hydropower generation, irrigated agriculture, fisheries, and globally significant ecosystems, including the Barotse Floodplain and the Zambezi Delta. However, accelerating climate variability, deforestation, pollution, unsynchronised dam operations, and fragmented governance have placed increasing pressure on the basin. Mean annual river flows have declined by nearly 20 percent over the past two decades, while recurrent droughts and floods increasingly threaten energy security, food production, and ecosystem services.
The GEF-supported project will strengthen the capacity of the Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) and its riparian states to implement an integrated Water–Energy–Food–Environment (WEFE) nexus approach, aligned with the ZAMCOM Strategic Plan and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Shared Watercourses. Key interventions include enhancing basin-wide coordination through WEFE guidelines and harmonised environmental and social assessment frameworks, alongside the deployment of climate-risk-informed decision-support tools such as the Zambezi Water Information System (ZAMWIS) and targeted Climate Risk Assessments.
To address increasing hydrological variability, the project will pilot adaptive dam-operation and environmental-flow rules to better balance hydropower generation, flood risks, and ecosystem needs across the basin. It will also introduce innovative financing mechanisms, including Payments for Ecosystem Services and user-fee schemes, to diversify and sustain funding for ecosystem and water-resource management.
“Working together, Zambezi riparian states are strengthening climate-resilient river basin management to protect ecosystems and secure water, energy, and food for millions across Southern Africa,” said Gareth Phillips, Climate and Environment Finance Manager at the African Development Bank. “This project supports coordinated, climate-informed, and financially sustainable river basin management that underpins ecosystems, thereby promoting Southern Africa’s development agenda.”
Women, youth, and local communities will play a central role in project planning, implementation, and monitoring, to ensure socially inclusive and locally responsive outcomes. Knowledge sharing will be embedded throughout the project, with lessons disseminated through ZAMWIS and regional peer exchanges.
The GEF grant is expected to catalyse more than $140 million in co-financing from beneficiary governments, the African Development Bank, the Green Climate Fund, Climate Investment Funds, UNCCD–Global Mechanism, private-sector partners, and the Team Europe Initiative, coordinated through ZAMCOM-led platforms.
Together, these investments aim to deliver lasting global environmental benefits, including improved water quality, restored ecosystem services, and enhanced climate resilience, in line with the GEF-8 cycle’s International Waters focal area strategy.
