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TRANSBOUNDARY WATER MANAGEMENTframework, secondary data, reports, publications, key informantinterviews and presentations shared at the Sub-Saharan Africa WaterSector Reform Consultative Meeting organized by the Republicof Zambia in Lusaka in June 2013. A further examination of thewater sector reform process in Zambia, with respect to the existingregional and international water resources management instruments,will enable an evaluation of how these have influenced andshaped the water sector reforms.Until October 2012, the Water Act Cap 198 of 1949 was theprincipal act for the allocation of surface water resources throughthe system of water rights. The major constraints of this law werethat it did not elaborate on sustainable water resource managementpractices and never provided for groundwater regulationand international water resource management. However, at theregional and international levels, Zambia has been a signatory to anumber of international treaties related to the water sector. Theseinclude the Southern African Development Community (SADC)revised protocol on shared watercourses, the United NationsPopulation of Zambia’s major river systemsMajor river system in ZambiaZambeziKafueLuangwaChambeshi-LuapulaTanganyikaSource: Modified after JICA Report, 1995The six catchments in ZambiaMwinilungaANGOLAKwandoDEMOCRATIC REPUBLICOF CONGOZambeziZAMBEZIKolweziSiomaNgwezi N.P.NAMIBIA BOTSWANALumbumbashiKAFUESource: National Water Policy, 2010LikasiChingolaPopulation distribution (%)23.7239.9818.316.881.13LuanshyaL. MweruKafue N.P. KabweKaomaZAMBIALusakaLivingstoneZIMBABWETANGANYIKALUAPULACHAMBESHILuapulaL. KaribaL. BangweuluMufuliraNdolaL. Tanganyika TANZANIAChambeshiLUANGWAMuchinga MountainsMOZAMBIQUEVila do ZumboMALAWINational ParksInternational boundaryRoadsConvention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses ofInternational Watercourses, the Ramsar Convention,the United Nations Framework Convention onClimate Change and the United Nations Conventionon Biological Diversity. Furthermore, it is also asignatory to two international agreements on theshared management of Lake Tanganyika and theKariba Dam on the Zambezi river. Lack of provisionfor the management of international waters inthe 1949 Water Act created a dilemma for Zambiaover whether to sign the Zambezi WatercourseManagement Commission (ZamCom) agreement in2004. As such, Zambia needed to consult its stakeholdersbefore signing the agreement. However, aspart of the efforts to facilitate benefit sharing in theZambezi River Basin, Zambia embarked on watersector reforms. Technical cooperation in the ZambeziRiver Basin also exists among the large hydropowerdam operators and government institutions throughthe Joint Operations Technical Committee involvingZambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Furthermore,frequent droughts and floods have brought in anotherdimension of technical cooperation on hydrologicaldata exchange between Zambia and Mozambique.Two key government ministries are directlyinvolved in Zambia’s water sector reforms. One is theMinistry of Mines, Energy and Water Developmentwhich is currently responsible for water, under whichthe Department of Water Affairs (DWA) has beenperforming water resources management functions.The other is the Ministry of Local Government andHousing (MLGH), under which the Department ofHousing and Infrastructure Development (DHID) isresponsible for water supply and sanitation functions.In the early 1970s, the Government of the Republicof Zambia (GRZ) initiated a dialogue on water sectorreforms. Three key reports were prepared:• the DWA report on the proposed Zambia NationalWater Authority (July 1979)• the report by Zambia Industrial and MiningCorporation on the establishment of the proposedNational Water Authority (1985)• the report by the Ministry of Decentralizationon the Reorganization Study of the Water andSanitation Sector in Zambia (1988).However, it was not until 1994 that GRZ officiallyembarked on the implementation of the water sectorreforms with regard to policy formulation, re-examiningthe legal and institutional framework and bringingit in line with modern principles of water governanceand other pieces of legislation.The first National Water Policy was adopted in 1994,primarily to guide the restructuring of the water sectorwith a focus on the water supply and sanitation subsector.Hence, water supply and sanitation functions weretransferred from the ministry responsible for water to theMLGH. This was followed by major achievements in thedevelopment of the legal and institutional framework,[ 93 ]