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Let Me Introduce Myself
Welcome to the IW-LEARN blog on sustainable financing! I am hosting this blog on behalf of the entire IW-LEARN team.
Let me introduce myself: my name is Tracy Hart, and I have been working on transboundary water management for the last 10 years for the World Bank. I am a water economist by training, and so have done my share of project economic analysis and incremental cost analysis for GEF IW projects.
What do I hope that we will discuss here? Anything and everything relating to sustainable financing, starting with project co-financing, sustainable financing of multi-country transboundary institutions, valuation of transboundary assets and services, revolving funds, role of Strategic Action Programs (SAPs) for mobilizing financing, relationships with other institutions that collect water user fees, etc. This is an exhaustive list, and I will begin to write a bit on what is current thinking on each of these, week by week.
However, I encourage (and beg!) you to submit your own questions and comments to get this discussion going. No question or comment is too small, or too big. Thanks for visiting, and thanks more for participating.
Tracy Hart,
Ph.D, Senior Environmental Specialist, Environment Department,
The World Bank
Mail Stop MC-5-845, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA
Tel: 1.202.458.7465 / 1.202.522.0367
Email: thart@worldbank.org
www.worldbank.org
skype: tracyehart
World Bank GEF IW: 30 projects leveraging $1.3 billion for global transboundary water management
Millenium Solution - Financing
Here is more than a comment to get the ball rolling. The question is how will this program get the Gariep Whitewater Soul Partnership off the ground. I will paste the background below and then E-mail you directly a pdf document which ia the Application for financing that I did for the Southern Africa Trust last year. It was a long shot for them but it now appears that this forum may well be able to assist.
Thanks and best regards
Andrew
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Millennium Solutions
(If you get my DRIFT)
Andrew Hockly
Location
Lesotho, South Africa and Namibia downstream of the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme, Lake Gariep and the Van der Kloof developments. Rivers affected are the Senqu – Garieb continuum and inter basin transfers to the Tugela, Vaal and Great Fish Systems.
Outline
There is an immediate opportunity with the implementation of a number of Low Flow Guaging Weirs and proposed Irrigation Diversions on the lower Gariep (Orange River – South Africa / Namibia.) By redesigning the downstream bed profile in order to create standing waves and incorporating this with step pools / vortex weirs, larvaecide applications could be more effectively administered. Monitoring and research whether remote or local would be improved. Tourism opportunities and destinations would be created. The concept is repeatable globally.
Aims
To reduce the effects of the Blackfly Plague
To monitor toxic spills, organophosphates included.
To assist in establishing a more beneficial flow regime, covering water quality, flushes etc..
To place concrete on bedrock, creating sustainable standing waves.
To provide a effective research bases, accessible and online.
To create sustainable tourism destinations
To create employment and knowledge
To enable the fish to swim upstream
To mitigate the current disaster of the destruction of local livelihoods.
To create a Millennium Outcome.
Plague Control
Problems
The current manual method of larvaecide application, by pouring it off bridges, does not work.
Helicopter applications are effective but limited by cost and prone to the limited local knowledge of the various pilots.
Eskom controls the flow. The larvae have to be attacked at very specific times in their cycle. There is a very limited flow/temperature window where any effect is possible.
Solution
Eskom must agree to allow flow control at these times.
At the re-engineered weirs, by even and continuous application of the larvaecide at the required flow and for the required period, a far more effective and quantifiable solution will be created.
Research
With standardized treatment locations, research and monitoring, both local and remote, will be greatly improved.
Water quality could be better monitored with standardized sampling techniques and locations.
Options
Increasing the height of these impoundments could be potentially very beneficial from an environment and river health perspective.
Various scenarios are possible with the increased ability to manipulate the flow.
This appears to have great potential here on the lower Gariep ( Southern Namibian Border) where the lessening silt load is creating higher water temperatures and increasing the algae outbreaks. With future developments, an option to treat the water at these points becomes a future possibility.
Small scale, “run of the river” generation options could also be included, or at least designed for.
Tourism and local development
Whenever a construction site is created, infrastructure is pushed through.
These are mostly in remote places and often scenically viable. If these construction camps are then somehow upgrade to a tourist standard and by empowering however the local landowners, we then have both an improved attraction and a tourism possibility.
Outcome
Waves, waves, waves, forever, for free.
New tourism development opportunities.
A lesser Plague of Blackflies
A less toxic river
Less dead fish
Less dead people
Less sick livestock
More fun
And the creation of the Surf South Africa 2020 project.
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A work in progress
Andrew Hockly
info@kalahari.co.za
Tel: +27 54 451 0177
Cell: +27 72 515 6079
www.kalahari.co.za
Kalahari Adventure Centre
Box 20
Augrabies Falls Village
8874
Northern Cape
South Africa
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