With a view to possible accession, a national workshop was convened on 25 and 26 October in Gaborone, Republic of Botswana to raise broader awareness of the Convention and develop a road map for accession.
The general objective of the workshop was to inform stakeholders in Botswana about the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention), to share about the processes initiated by Government of Botswana to become party to the Water Convention and to discuss the next steps in the accession process.
Specifically, this involved:
- Informing stakeholders about the Water Convention;
- Identifying the challenges of cooperative management of transboundary rivers and international lakes at national, regional and international levels;
- Outlining the content of the Water Convention in terms of benefits and obligations for Botswana;
- Discussing the practical implementation of the Water Convention to address the challenges of water resources management in Botswana, based on the experience of existing Parties;
- Examining the interaction and complementarity between the Water Convention and regional and sub-regional/basin legal frameworks;
- Discussing the next steps and road map in the accession process.
The results achieved through this workshop were:
- Stakeholders were informed about the cooperation framework of the Water Convention at the global level and discussed the future engagement of Botswana with the Convention’s Programme of Work 2022-24;
- The advantages for States to become party to the Water Convention were presented;
- Updates on the efforts initiated for Botswana’s accession to the Convention were presented;
- The actors were informed about the next steps of the accession process and the contribution of this process to Botswana's national water management and transboundary water cooperation were discussed;
Actors defined a roadmap, with key milestones agreed, for accession to the Water Convention.
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