Okavango Delta Management Plan - Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

Strategic Objective 3.2: To develop socio-economic opportunities to improve livelihoods of the <strong>Okavango</strong> <strong>Delta</strong> stakeholders
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Limited knowledge on other
livelihoods opportunities (high
dependence on livestock and
arable farming)
Tendency of citizens to depend
on government assistance.
Gender bias towards males and
lack of youth involvement.
Outbreak of diseases
High tourism capital investment
These resources are spread over the four management regimes: open access,
common property, state property and private property, but the dominant one is
open access. Therefore the resources are available for both subsistence and
commercial purposes. The opportunities availed by open access are negated by
limited regulation in the use of some of these resources resulting in unsustainable
off take.
There are, to some extent, investment policies in place which stakeholders can take
advantage of to use the natural resources to improve their livelihoods; however,
this is counteracted by lack of entrepreneurial skills and low literacy levels. This
has resulted in continued dependence on government assistance (drought relief
programme, food baskets, etc) as well as traditional livelihood activities such as
livestock and arable farming which are highly susceptible to drought and outbreak
of diseases.
The <strong>Delta</strong> has provided a good tourism base due to endowment of natural
resources. Tourism is contributing to enhancement of livelihoods, however it faces
a threat of being dependent on almost a single product line, which is wildlife. There
is a need to counteract by taking advantage of the existing natural resource base.
The other threat is that the sector is highly capital intensive resulting in low citizen
participation. This has resulted in conflicts and mistrust due to inequitable benefit
sharing from the utilization of the <strong>Delta</strong> resources.
Communities are using the CBNRM programme to improve their livelihoods; the
major hurdle is that there is no policy to support it. In addition to this the
performance leaves much to be desired due to lack of business management and
marketing skills as well as inequitable benefit sharing.
4.4 DEVELOPMENT OF OPERATIONAL OBJECTIVES
Operational objectives set the framework for converting the strategic objectives into
a series of practical management measures within the context of the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats reflected in Table 4.1 to 4.3.
The development of operational objectives was linked to the strategic objectives and
key issues given in Table 3.3. Therefore they were categorised according to
strategic goals of the thematic areas and strategic objectives of the respective subthematic
areas (Table 4-4).