Ratidzo C. Makombe
The African Union’s (AU) 2026 theme, “Assuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to Achieve the Goals of Agenda 2063,” serves not only as a development slogan but also as a political challenge.
If the AU genuinely commits to this goal, a key source of practical experience it can reference is the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) framework for transboundary water governance.
SADC has quietly achieved something many regions struggle to: it has institutionalised cooperation over shared rivers, effectively preventing interstate conflict. Through its Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses and a network of functioning River Basin Organisations, Southern Africa has demonstrated that water scarcity does not automatically produce water wars.
Institutional density, routine data sharing and predictable diplomatic engagement have stabilised hydro-politics in a region marked by climatic variability and uneven development. For the AU, this is a powerful lesson. Sustainable water availability at the continental scale will require more than national reforms; it will require legally grounded, operationalised regional frameworks that make cooperation the default, not the exception.
Conversely, SADC offers a cautionary tale. While it has successfully managed inter-state relations, it has been less effective in redistributing power and benefits within nations. Most of SADC’s water projects prioritise technology and infrastructure, such as dams, hydropower, modelling systems, and macro-level supply reliability.
For instance, the Cahora Bassa dam in Mozambique has a capacity of 2075 MW, much of which is exported to South Africa. According to 2023 World Bank data, only 36 per cent of Mozambicans have access to electricity, compared to 87.7 per cent in South Africa. Though these achievements are significant, they do not ensure equitable access to water or safe sanitation in rural areas, informal settlements, or peri-urban communities. To make the AU’s 2026 theme truly effective, it must go beyond equating “availability” with “infrastructure presence.” Government water security differs from household-level water access justice.
The gender dimension is particularly instructive. Across Southern Africa, women bear the daily burden of collecting water, managing household sanitation, and performing water-related care labour. According to UNICEF, in 7 out of 10 households without water on their premises, women and girls are responsible for water collection. However, they remain underrepresented in basin-level decision-making structures. SADC’s frameworks acknowledge gender mainstreaming, but participation often remains procedural rather than transformative.
In rural Sub-Saharan Africa, women are the primary water collectors in approximately 60-80 per cent of households. Yet, women’s representation in formal water governance institutions remains disproportionately low relative to their role in water provisioning (varies by country, but typically below parity). The AU now has an opportunity to move further. Assuring sustainable water availability cannot be separated from recognising who manages water daily, whose labour is invisible, and whose voices are structurally marginalised. A continental water agenda that does not centre gendered realities risks reproducing inequality under the banner of sustainability.
Transparency and accountability are vital lessons. In SADC, negotiations over large hydropower projects and transboundary infrastructure often occur at elite diplomatic and technical levels, with minimal public oversight. The Batoka Gorge hydropower project between Zambia and Zimbabwe exemplifies this.
Negotiated through bilateral and basin-level structures, it emphasises regional energy security. However, financial arrangements, feasibility studies, and risk-sharing are primarily managed at the executive and technical levels, with limited public involvement. Similarly, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project remains a model of interstate cooperation despite past procurement scandals and community grievances. In both instances, hydro-cooperation has improved relations between states, but democratic oversight has not kept pace. For the AU, sustainability requires transparent governance. Open data portals that share hydrological information and accessible reports on sanitation targets are not just administrative tools; they are essential for fostering trust across societies and nations.
The SADC experience provides a valuable political lesson: regional institutions can achieve peace, characterised by the absence of conflict.
The Lesotho Highland Water Project demonstrates stable diplomacy; despite governmental changes, political unrest in Lesotho, and water shortages in South Africa, it has continued without triggering interstate conflict. In Phase I, many Lesotho residents were displaced, and compensation issues persisted for decades.
Meanwhile, Lesotho exports large quantities of water to South Africa’s industrial areas, yet some rural Basotho communities still encounter limited and inconsistent access to water and sanitation. This exemplifies negative peace: cooperation secured through treaties, joint commissions, and long-term agreements. As part of Agenda 2063, which aspires for a more ambitious, prosperous, and people-centred continent, water governance must do more than prevent disputes. It should actively foster distributive justice, ecological resilience, and inclusive growth. Achieving sustainable water access requires ecosystem protection, climate adaptation strategies, and linking basin governance to community service delivery.
The AU should neither copy SADC’s model precisely nor ignore it. Instead, it needs to analyse it critically. SADC demonstrates that African regionalism can create effective, legally consistent water management systems.
However, without stronger democratic practices and social redistribution, regional cooperation risks reinforcing inequality rather than reducing it. By 2026, the AU must build on the cooperative foundation established by regions like SADC and strengthen it through increased participation, gender responsiveness, ecological awareness, and accountability.
Water is more than just a sectoral concern; it serves as a mirror reflecting the potential of African regionalism to evolve from elite-led coordination into truly inclusive governance. If the AU views its 2026 theme as an opportunity to align the continent’s ambitions with lessons learned from regional experiences, both successes and failures, it could advance the realisation of Agenda 2063 not only as a goal for stability but also as a pursuit of justice.
Ratidzo C. Makombe is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg and a Researcher at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation.
www.sabcnews.com, https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/water-power-and-regional-politics-what-the-au-can-learn-from-southern-africa/
