Through the sub-catchment forums, water users have been empowered to participate in IWRM and climate change adaptation processes through dialogue and decentralized water governance.
There is now an increased understanding of environmental, economic and social implications of different river flow scenarios under expected climatic conditions and increased capacity to collect and analyze such information. The water sector’s vulnerability to climate change is now better understood and pilot actions have generated lessons in adaptation. “With these kinds of realities, we have to work together,” says Chairman YusuphM. Yusuph, a rice, maize and ginger farmer in the lowlands. These activities have simultaneously built up the capacity of country institutions through training and workshops and disseminated knowledge about the basin among water users.
Institutional and information gaps between the basin and national level processes have now been bridged through studies, exchange of knowledge and collaboration between climate change and water sectors. The Pangani Basin Water Board now has the information needed to manage the basin in ways which support nature as well as people and their livelihoods.
With WANI and donor interventions finally having come to an end in 2011, the focus is now on the Pangani River Basin stakeholders and the government of Tanzania to continue working towards a future where water resources are used sustainably, maintaining both ecosystems health and people’s livelihood security. Stakeholders are now gaining understanding of social, economic and environmental trade-offs for different water allocations through the development of a number of scenarios. The PBWB and the Tanzanian team of specialists have the tools and skills to help the basin’s stakeholders further explore outlined scenarios, or to investigate new ones, as they seek the optimum trade-off between development and resource protection for this basin. The Pangani Basin has strong social and governance structures that can help identify this desired trade-off point and drive the process of setting up a basin-wide water-allocation plan.