Lesotho Highlands Water Project Research Articles

AN EVALUATION OF LESOTHO’S RIGHT TO “EXPROPRIATE” THE WATER IN THE TREATY ON THE LESOTHO HIGHLANDS WATER PROJECT IN A “CONFLICT OF USES”*

This article explores the contemporary spectre of “expropriation” within the framework of the Treaty on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP). The LHWP is an enigma in both its scope and practical application since it is governed by two apparently complementary treaties, and it seemingly incorporates the domestic laws of both South Africa and Lesotho. This is compounded by the contradictory legislation that has been promulgated by Lesotho that prioritises its domestic water uses despite the entrenched provisions of the LHWP regime that prioritises the supply of water to South Africa. This uncertainty has significant implications for a “conflict of uses” in the LHWP that may trigger an expropriation bid by Lesotho. This article unmasks the possible response of the LHWP legal framework to Lesotho’s right to “expropriate” the water in the LHWP in light of this ambiguous and confounding legal framework.

Hydropolitics versus Human Security: Implications of South Africa's Appropriation of Lesotho's Highlands Water

Abstract The Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which exports water to South Africa, has enhanced the unequal structural relationship that exists between both states. Lesotho, one of the few countries in the world that exports water, has transformed from one of the largest sources of labor for South Africa to a water reservoir for South Africa. Though the project provides mutual strategic economic and political benefits to both riparian states, its construction has negatively affected environmental and human security in Lesotho. Due to hydropolitics, environmental threats in Lesotho caused by the project's construction are overlooked. These threats, which have devastating effects on resettled communities and the country's ecosystem, also constitute a threat to domestic and international security. The desire to prevent interstate conflict and maintain cooperation between the two riparian states further enhances the lopsided interstate relationship.

The Treaty on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and the principle of "equitable and reasonable utilisation"

The principle of "equitable and reasonable utilisation" has been proposed as a tool to resolve a conflict of uses since it advocates for fair and sustainable utilisation of shared water resources. This paper examines this proposition with a specific focus on the Treaty on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which regulates the use of the Orange River. To this end, it is my view that the principle of "vital human needs" as an incidence of the principle of "equitable and reasonable utilisation", proffers the most effective tool to resolve the anticipated conflict of uses in the Orange River basin.

Environmental change, risk and vulnerability: poverty, food insecurity and HIV/AIDS amid infrastructural development and climate change in Southern Africa

AbstractThe Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) is a transnational multi-dam infrastructural development project to sell water from Lesotho to South Africa. Based on field and secondary research in Lesotho, I demonstrate how infrastructural projects such as the LHWP shape a geography of risk and become a medium through which riskscapes are created or exacerbated in both South Africa and Lesotho. Project-induced changes interacted with and intensified co-occurring vulnerabilities for communities directly and indirectly affected by the LHWP over time. I focus specifically on risks to livelihood, food insecurity and health, within the context of increased climatic shocks in the region.

Consequences of The Implementation of Lesotho Highlands Water Project on Agricultural Production of Dam-Affected and Relocated Farm Families: Mohale Dam Maseru

Consequences of The Implementation of Lesotho Highlands Water Project on Agricultural Production of Dam-Affected and Relocated Farm Families: Mohale Dam Maseru

Lesotho's white gold: the political ecology of temporality and the economy of anticipation in resource extraction and large dam infrastructural projects

The construction phases of large dam and infrastructural projects often extend over long periods of time, creating social, environmental, cultural, political, and economic consequences in the proximate communities and landscapes. The temporality of the phases of the project – from planning to construction to post-construction – reveal more layered and wide-ranging consequences from the social and environmental changes that result, sharpened by greater attention to how these changes unfold across multiple timescales and sites of the project. Using the case study of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), I draw on a political ecology approach that uses longitudinal data, including interviews, document analysis, and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Lesotho since 1997, to illustrate how active project narratives draw from and promulgate an affective economy of anticipation in ways that aim to both sustain the hope of people affected by the project and contain their criticism of the project amidst a continued investment by the state in the expansion of the LHWP. As people directly affected experience disjunctures between the promises and the realities of the project over time, subsequent phases of the project are simultaneously renewed and recast through a logic of improvement that emphasizes changes in the implementation of the project while continuing to invest in the future imaginary of development that requires going forward with project plans. A logic of continuity and improvement structures this continued commitment to the capital intensive LHWP through the strategic mobilization of phases that scaffold both the material and physical dimensions of the project, but also the affective and anticipatory hopes of prosperity that the project represents. In this case, it also reveals how project authorities weave these dimensions – the material and the aspirational – into specific planned changes and improvements to address previous and ongoing concerns as projects progress over time. This longitudinal approach demonstrates the importance of temporal and affective dimensions to our understanding of the complex, multi-faceted consequences of resource extractive mega-dam projects such as the LHWP, particularly as they further rationalize the resource extractive approach to economic development in the region.Keywords: development, dams, infrastructure, political ecology, temporality, affect, resource extraction, economy of anticipation, displacement, construction, Lesotho, Southern Africa

Weathering dynamics of Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs): A case study from the Lesotho Highlands

Basaltic terrains contribute a significant component to the global silicate weathering flux despite their limited areal coverage. A strong correlation between chemical weathering flux and climatic factors such as temperature in volcanically inactive basaltic fields implies that weathering of basalt might have played an important role in maintaining the habitability of the Earth and the balance of the geological carbon cycle. However, the low erosion rate of flood basalt provinces on tectonically quiescent cratons, where the clear climate dependence of weathering rate has been observed, implies a ‘supply-limited’ weathering regime so that weathering fluxes are expected to be controlled by physical erosion rather than climate. This work tests the weathering dynamics of flood basalts by investigating the weathering flux of the Karoo LIP on the Lesotho Highlands where an extremely low rate of denudation has been recorded through terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide dating and sediment flux. Stream chemistry of the rivers from the Lesotho Highlands shows typical characteristics of basalt weathering with Ca and Mg as the dominant cations and HCO3− as the dominant anion. Strong spatial and seasonal variability of solute concentration, possibly linked to a dilution effect, is observed. However, the giant Katse Reservoir of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) effectively averages the spatial and seasonal variability of the solute concentration. The average solution concentration and long-term runoff of the Katse Reservoir give an average atmospheric CO2 consumption rate of 0.26 ± 0.02 × 106 mol/km2/yr (mean ± standard deviation). The chemical weathering flux requires complete alteration of primary silicates and, therefore, a ‘supply-limited’ weathering regime is suggested given the low denudation rate. Nevertheless, the chemical weathering rate of the Lesotho Highlands, as well as other low-eroding basaltic plateaus, is still consistent with the global correlation between temperature and the rate of basalt weathering. A production-limited denudation rate, modulated by temperature, is suggested to reconcile the paradox between the observed temperature dependence of chemical weathering rates and ‘supply-limited’ weathering regimes.

Degrees of change toward polycentric transboundary water governance: exploring the Columbia River and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project

Baltutis, W. J., and M.-L. Moore. 2019. Degrees of change toward polycentric transboundary water governance: exploring the Columbia River and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. Ecology and Society 24(2):6. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10852-240206

Lessons from transforming a South African special-purpose vehicle into a project implementation agency

The Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority was established in 1986 as a special-purpose vehicle to implement the South African side of the binational Lesotho Highlands Water Project. In 2000, it was transformed into a generic public project implementing agency. In this role, it has funded and implemented the timely and economical delivery of large strategic water projects. Its implementation methodologies avoided many of the risks associated with such projects, due largely to the disciplines imposed by its financing model. However, the organisation remains subject to political uncertainties, which means that its project pipeline is dependent on unpredictable mandates, which limits its ability to plan its operations. It nevertheless provides a useful case study of the mobilisation of private finance for public sector infrastructure projects as well as the political challenges inherent in public sector institutional reform.

Kingdom of Lesotho: 2017 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Kingdom of Lesotho

This 2017 Article IV Consultation highlights that high levels of unemployment, poverty, and inequality persist in Lesotho despite its faster growth compared with regional peers over the last decade. GDP growth is expected to be about 3 percent in FY2017/18, below the average of 4.1 percent for the past decade, and driven by mining and agriculture. Over the next three years, GDP growth is expected to be led by mining and construction related to the Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase II. A steep decline in Southern African Customs Union transfers, a major source of government revenue, will result in a fiscal deficit that is likely to exceed 6 percent of GDP for the second year.

Partnerships between Foreign Agencies and Civil Society Organisations in Lesotho: A Marriage of Convenience

Lesotho is a country completely surrounded by South Africa. Since independence in 1966 the country attracted a lot of foreign aid interventions in most of its development programmes, including those channelled to civil society organisations. This research is a case study of one indigenous community-based organisation (CBO) in the northern part of the country. The aftermath of the massive Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) also created collaboration and partnerships with international donor organisations. This study investigated the impact of foreign aid interventions and donations to the country and the partnerships created with civil society organisations in Lesotho. The qualitative design through a case study approach to research identified an indigenous CBO, in the northern part of Lesotho within the vicinity of the LHWP to investigate foreign aid funding models and partnerships with civil society organisations. This is a study conducted over an extended period and its accounts give a series of interviews, focus group interviews, transect walks to some community development projects areas. The study used a qualitative inquiry where the Boseele CBO was used as a case study revealing its history with partnerships over 10 years of its existence. The results were analysed thematically, chronologically and narratively and the CBO's successes with Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) funding reflected positive foreign aid contribution towards the work of civil society organisations and that of community development. However, setbacks and lack of continuity with some projects questioned some of the funding models of some foreign agencies. Foreign aid partnerships and success with Civil Society Organisations and in community development should not be a marriage of convenience, but culminate in a spirit of collaboration, human capital development and benefits of civil society and community ownership. While the study cannot make claims to provide solutions to the funding models and challenges in each, the purpose of this study was achieved because it identified and obstacles that civil society organisations face, while they strive to advance their social mandate of serving their communities with meagre resources at their disposal.

Coming to the party of their own volition: Interest groups, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase 1 and change in the water sector

Interest groups are omnipresent phenomena of most political societies. They are present because of their attempts to influence public policy and their representation role. These roles are fundamental agential roles. Through these roles interest groups can bring about changes in the water policy arena. This paper will look at some of these changes using the Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase 1 as a case study. Through their actions to bring about change, interest groups are drivers of water politics. Interest groups can enhance water policies when they highlight the inherent deficiencies of policies and suggest alternatives for the betterment of policies concerning the welfare of individuals or groups as well as the environment. Water resource managers and decision-makers should therefore be aware of these actors and the roles they are likely to play when influencing aspects of water infrastructure projects. Interest groups can influence water policies even if they are only involved on an informal basis. In other words, governments do not have to go out of their way, so to speak, to involve interest groups; interest groups will come to the party, on their own volition. Said differently, interest groups usually become involved in water policy matters on a voluntary basis whether water policy makers like it or not.

Upstream Flows of Water: from the Lesotho Highlands to Metropolitan South Africa

The aim of this article is to consider the mountains of Lesotho as suppliers of water to the Gauteng metropolitan area in South Africa. By analysing the hydropolitics of the Southern African region in the context of politics of scale, the focus is on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), a transboundary water transfer project between Lesotho and South Africa. The goal is to link hydropolitics with territorialities. The LHWP has resulted in a reproduction of the asymmetrical relations between and inside the metropolitan and mountain areas of both countries. Coalitions of actors have emerged from these new relations that the transfer has produced, and as such, this project should be analysed as a hydraulic assemblage in which three distinct scales of territorialities are clashing or cooperating with each other: the regional scale, made up of South Africa’s political and economic elites, who seek to direct Southern Africa’s water resources towards the thirsty region in and around Johannesburg; the scale of the Lesotho government, which has a nationalist policy of monopolising any social and spatial stakes for the benefit of the national territory; and the scale of the Maloti communities, which claim their rights as a transnational Basotho nation and autonomy in the face of interventionism from the Lesotho state.

The Fiscal Effects of Foreign Aid in Lesotho

Lesotho has historically depended on foreign aid. This paper seeks to understand the fiscal effects of such aid inflows on Lesotho’s economy over the period 1982-2010. The cointegration test results indicate a strong negative long-run association between recurrent expenditure and foreign aid, and a positive but marginally significant relationship between aid and capital expenditure. These findings provide lack of evidence for the presence of aid fungibility since foreign aid is not diverted to non-development expenditure. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project also seems to have been effective in terms of changing government budgetary allocations and has had a positive impact on development spending. This supports the notion that provision of loans instead of grants results in an effective use of government funds. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n1p116

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project: Dams, Development, and the World Bank

Between 1989 and 2007 the World Bank was one of the funders of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project in southern Africa. This project, which included two large dams (Katse and Mohale), had significant impacts on local people, including loss of grazing, arable land, and resettlement of 71 households in Phase 1A and 325 households in Phase 1B, with a total of 573 people being affected directly, and another 20,000 people affected indirectly (e.g. through loss of natural resources, disruption of travel routes).. Conflicts between LHDA and the World Bank revolved around compensation, resettlement, development, in-stream flow requirements, downstream impacts, the use of project royalties, and the safeguard policies of the World Bank. The impacts of Phase 1 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project are examined, and an assessment of the LHWP relative to other large-scale infrastructure and resettlement projects in Africa and Asia sponsored by the World Bank and other funding agencies is provided.

White Gold and Troubled Waters in Southern Africa: Hydropolitical Policy's Effect on Peace in Lesotho and South Africa

Over recent decades, scholars have debated the connection between resource scarcity and conflict. Does resource scarcity produce conflict, or does scarcity demand development and international cooperation? Can environmental stress be an occasion for peace, or does international cooperation during an environmental crisis indicate local or intrastate conflicts? Toward responding to these questions, this analysis examines the effects the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) and shows that while the LHWP helped to put a stop to international conflicts between Lesotho and South Africa, the Project's consequences (ecocide, displacement, and unequal distribution of basic resources) have intensified tensions within these states.Related Articles Bakenova, Saule. 2008. “.” Politics & Policy 36 (): 676–719. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2008.00125.x/abstract Moreno‐Jaimes, Carlos. 2011. “.” Politics & Policy 39 (): 1021–1052. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2011.00328.x/abstract Elliott‐Teague, Ginger. 2011. “.” Politics & Policy 39 (): 835–861. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2011.00318.x/abstract Related Media . 2013. “.” YouTube Video, May 27. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKj7G5QR0To Greyl, Lucie. 2015. “.” Ejolt/Environmental Justice Atlas. http://ejatlas.org/conflict/lesotho‐highlands‐water‐project‐lesotho . 2015. “.” http://www.lhda.org . 2011. “.” http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/video/2011/03/15/Abundant‐Waters‐Harnessing‐Water‐Lesotho‐Future

Sprayed concrete for underground excavations - A status report

Synopsis Commencement of the next phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project is a year or so away from becoming reality. Some 50 km of tunnels in the form of access adits, shafts, diversion tunnels, and main waterways will be constructed. Sprayed concrete will form an integral part of the temporary and permanent rock support systems that will be installed. Furthermore, the use of sprayed concrete as a final tunnel lining solution was proposed as a viable alternative to concrete linings in the feasibility studies that preceded the forthcoming implementation phase. The aim of this paper is to make the reader aware of all the sprayed concrete related issues that engineers tend to grapple with during the design and construction of tunnel projects and other underground works. Primarily, these issues would include selection of applicable design parameters, technical specifications, construction application methods, quality control and, most importantly in the context of final or permanent linings, the durability of sprayed concrete. The International Tunnelling Association (ITA) Working Group (WG) 12 has been tasked specifically to publish a set of recommendations on the Quality and Control of the Application of Sprayed Concrete and the Testing of Sprayed Concrete for Durability. These tasks were also further explored at the recent World Tunnel Congress (WTC 2015) that was held in Dubrovnik, Croatia at the end of May 2015.

Does Foreign Aid Make a Difference? A Critique from a Civil Society Organisation in Lesotho

Lesotho is a country plagued by underdevelopment and poverty. This paper is a case study of an indigenous community organisation in the northern district of Botha-Bothe in Lesotho. Boseele is a rural development organisation which attracted international donor investment in the aftermath of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. The study aims at investigating the impact of capacity development processes. In this paper it is understood and interpreted to refer to multi-level analysis of contributing complexities affecting non-formal community education. Education is a contributing factor in community development. Alan Rogers’ developmental basic model to change interrogates the realities of empowerment theory against power dynamics and complexities, including foreign aid interventions in non-formal community education. A case study approach was used within a qualitative research design. Data were collected through individual and group interviews, observations, story-telling and transect walks. The results were analysed through thematic, chronological, narrative and document analysis. The study identified capacity-building landmarks over a period of ten years. Boseele’s successes with Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) funding reflect positive foreign aid contributions towards the work of civil society organisations in Lesotho, and the impact of community education and its multiplier effects. However, setbacks and lack of continuity by a nursery project funded by MS-Lesotho shows that the empowerment process is compromised where social and economic problems of individual members of civil society organisations and communities are not fully addressed. The funding intervention by the European Union posed challenges faced by short-term funding models for community education, its continuity and sustainability in particular and community development in general. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p1168

Impacts of Lesotho Highlands Water Project on Sustainable Livelihoods

The sustainable livelihood framework was used to understand and interpret communities’ perceptions of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project’s impacts on livelihoods in the highlands of Lesotho. In-depth interviews were held with representatives of households in three villages who were part of Phase 1A of the Lesotho Highland Project. The results suggest that the Lesotho Highland Water Project has changed the livelihoods of the mountain people living nearby. The water project should embark on image building by involving people from the affected communities in setting up new priorities and a new vision concerning how the project can aid in sustaining the livelihoods of affected villages. Most importantly, the project should educate the concerned villages regarding its prime objectives and how communities can benefit from them. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n15p640

Long-term changes in the algal composition of the Vaal River, South Africa – did the Lesotho Highlands Water Project play a role?

The Vaal River has become so nutrient-enriched that algal blooms pose problems. A unique opportunity arose to determine if there were changes in the chemistry en algal composition of the Vaal River after oligomesotrophic Katse Dam (Lesotho) water was imported to augment supplies in the light of growing water demands in the Vaal River catchment area. Algal concentration and composition in the Vaal River during three periods (between 1992 and 1994, 1998 and 2000, as well as 2004 and 2006) were compared to those in the Katse Dam (1998–2006). Some algal species, initially absent from the Vaal River, appeared in the river during and after transfer. Mixed algal assemblages found in the Vaal River before transfer of Katse Dam water gradually changed after transfer to assemblages mainly composed of cyanobacteria. The total algal concentration in the Vaal River Barrage doubled from the period between 1992 and 1994 to that between 2004 and 2006, indicating that the transfer of clear, oligomesotrophic Katse Dam water did not dilute the eutrophic Vaal River water sufficiently in order to reduce algal concentrations. Results showed that continuous downstream pollution and eutrophication of the Vaal River system eliminated the diluting effect of Katse imports. This resulted in changes in algal composition and concentration in the Vaal, characteristic of those associated with increasing eutrophication.