Southern African Development Community Region

Soon after commencing this study it became apparent that there were several important Environmental Information Systems, which operated regionally rather than nationally. Although not in the original brief, this chapter was added to discuss these systems. If GTOS is to operate regionally, it has much to learn from the organizations already occupying this niche.

Some of the regional systems operate under the organizational umbrella of SADC itself. Most are independent organizations, but frequently have formal recognition from SADC. Several are the regional branches of international bodies, such as the FAO, IUCN or WWF. This chapter is therefore not a survey of SADC the organization, but of EIS operating in the SADC region, and specifically that part of it covered by Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Acronyms Used Regionally

Status of Regional Environmental Observing Systems

Institutional framework

SADC

The 14-nation Southern Africa Development Community was established in 1980 as SADC. Its mission is to promote regional cooperation in economic development. SADC has adopted a Programme of Action covering cooperation in various sectors. Delegation of authority in SADC is on a sectoral basis. That is to say, each SADC member state has responsibility for the coordination of one or two sectors. In addition, there is a secretariat located in Gaborone, Botswana.

Several SADC sectors impinge on the environment. There are two sector coordinating units (SCU) dealing with agriculture: Agricultural Research is located in Botswana, while Food Security is located in Zimbabwe, Ministry of Lands and Agriculture. The Inland Fisheries, Forestry and Wildlife SCU is in Malawi (marine fisheries is coordinated by Namibia). These sectors listed above are themselves coordinated as a cluster by the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) development unit, under the mandate of Zimbabwe. The main objective of FANR is that adequate food be available to meet the needs of individual households and the total population of the region as a whole. Food security thus includes both supply and access.

The Environment, Lands Management Sector (ELMS) and the Water Sector coordinating units, both located in Lesotho, are not part of FANR. The logic is that the FANR cluster has to do with the use of the environment, while ELMS is to do with its protection. To avoid conflicts of interest the sectors are kept separate. ELMS must also span across the environmental aspects of the activities of all the other (non-Natural Resource) sectors, such as Transport, Communication, etc. ELMS is responsible for the EIS network in the SADC region. In 1996 it was decided to give some of the EIS responsibilities to other SADC institutions. The technical responsibility was given to FANR, largely because of the experience gained by the SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit (RRSU) located there. Within FANR, a SADC EIS Technical Unit (SETU) was established with funding from UNEP.

Since August 1999 SADC has reorganized its original decentralized structure. It became clear that sectoral programme of action was in some cases not well matched to the Member State resources. The present 18 SCUs will be replaced with five Planning and Coordination Directorates. Under this structure the FANR development unit has responsibility for Livestock Production and Animal Disease Control, Forestry, Wildlife, Marine and Inland Fisheries, Agricultural Research and Training, the Crop Sector and Food Security.

The RRSU facilitates training programmes and technical support in the field of remote sensing and GIS in support of early warning for food security and natural resources management. The RRSU operates a Meteosat PDUS receiving station, which is located at the Zimbabwe Meteorological Department. The Meteosat data are used by the Central Forecasting Unit of the ZMD. They also derive cloud duration images and rainfall estimates from it, used to monitor the rainfall situation over SADC in near-real time. Data is distributed to all SADC member states. At a regional level it is used by the Regional Early Warning Unit (REWU), the Drought Monitoring Centre (a Belgian-funded activity managed by the ZMD on behalf of the WMO, and currently under the authority of the Transport and Communications sector, which focuses on long-term forecasts, based primarily on statistical interpretation of El Niño/Southern Oscillation signals), and the Food Early Warning System supported by USAID, but also located at FANR. The RSSU also receives NOAA-AVHRR data and processes them to produce maps of Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which are distributed in the same way as the rainfall estimates.

In 1994 the RRSU started a number of activities in order to create a unique regional vector database. The RSSU spatial data is made available, together with satellite images and climate statistics, on CD-ROM. The CD can be viewed using customized software (WinDisp). While the main focus of the RSSU is on early warning for food security, it has become clear that the activities, databases and outputs are beneficial for a wide range of environmental uses. RSSU is now regarded as one of the major spatial data sources in southern Africa. Consequently the RSSU is involved in several initiatives to harmonize and improve spatial structures within the SADC region.

In 1996, SETU in collaboration with IUCN-ROSA and IMERCSA conducted a regional survey to assess the status of EIS in SADC member states, and collected information for a meta-database. Since 1999, no further funding has been available for SETU. After consultation with ELMS, FANR, IMERCSA, IUCN, and UNEP, it was decided to transform SETU into a Programme managed by RRSU on behalf of ELMS and FANR.

The SADC EIS Training and Education System (SETES) also commenced in 1996, in parallel with STU. It was coordinated by the University of Botswana.

SADC FANR consists of several units and projects. Overall it has about 35 professional staff and ten support staff. The central part of the programme is the Regional Early Warning Unit (REWU), which is assisted by RRSU. These two units are the core of the Regional Early Earning System (REWS). Each SADC member state has a National Early Warning System, supported by a National Early Warning Unit.

UN Organizations

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has a mission of alleviating poverty and hunger through promoting agriculture development. It has a regional office in Harare, with many programmes. One of its objectives is to act as a clearing-house for information on agriculture. This includes the annual, global State of Food and Agriculture and the biennial State of the World’s Forests and State of the World’s Fisheries and the decadal World Food Survey.

ALCOM (Aquatic Resource Management for Local Development) is an FAO programme based in Harare. It has produced a SADC region water resource database, which has information on 18 000 surface water features, 1 157 watersheds, 40 000 river stretches and 233 fish species. The database is available as a CD-ROM.

International NGOs

The World Wide Fund for nature is an international NGO organized into 24 national offices. WWF-SA has strong presences in Harare, Stellenbosch (near Cape Town) and Windhoek. It concentrates on biodiversity and natural resource management issues (increasingly, by the communities themselves). It does not see itself as a data providing organization, but in many instances has been forced to establish databases to assist in its own mission.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature Regional Office for southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA) has as its mission to influence, encourage and assist societies to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and socially sustainable. It has offices in Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, and South Africa, as well. It runs a number of programmes, including one on Environmental Information and Communication, as well as special projects, mostly to do with wetlands and networking.

Regional networking

APINA (the Acid Precipitation Information Network of Africa) is a body devoted to linking air pollution specialists and policy-makers, especially in southern Africa.

SATREN (Southern African Network for Training on the Environment) is a network coordinated by the Institute for Environmental Studies in Zimbabwe, to bring together universities and other institutions in providing training on the environment.

International networking

SADC itself is an international network, so there is much activity in this arena. Two examples are the SADC Rural Development Hub, which will start operations in April 2000, and the Global Water Partnership. The Global Water Partnership (and its southern African network, SATAC) aims to support the implementation of Integrated Water Resource management in southern Africa. It has a secretariat at IUCN-ROSA. It assists the SADC Water Sector Coordination Unit. It includes an objective of building and reinforcing mechanisms for sharing information and experience.

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