During the week of 15-19 September the WatPlaG consortium, consisting of ARA-Centro, FutureWater, Waterschap Hunze en Aa’s, UNESCO-IHE, and WE-Consult, held its final project seminars in Beira and Maputo. The WatPlaG project’s goal was to demonstrate the Netherlands Water Governance system to ARA-Centro (waterboard) in Mozambique.

Welcome remarks by the Dutch Embassy.
Welcome remarks by the Dutch Embassy.

The actual activities of this project were to introduce, refine, and demonstrate the application of water planning tools (WEAP and SWAT) (FutureWater), assist ARA-Centro in the development of a system for concessions for discharges (Waterschap Hunze en Aa’s), and help them in taking strategic choices for River Basin Planning (UNESCO-IHE).

The goal of this final WatPlaG project seminar was to demonstrate the final project results and more important, to have some fruitful discussions regarding these results and how this can be beneficially for ARA-Centro in terms of data-collection, strategic choices, self-sustainability, and full cost-recovery. Each of the two seminars was well visited by approximately 30-35 participants/stakeholders from Mozambique. Among the participants were: the World Bank, Direcção Nacional de Águas (DNA), the Dutch Embassy, ARA-Centro, ARA-Centro-Norte, ARA-Sul, ARA-Zambeze, FutureWater, Waterschap Hunze en Aa’s, UNESCO-IHE, and WE-Consult.

Antonio Melembe from ARA-Centro presenting the WEAP model.
Antonio Melembe from ARA-Centro presenting the WEAP model.

The morning program mainly covered the topics “Trans-boundary Water Management”, “Strategic Choices for River Basin Planning”, and “A System for Concessions for Discharges”, while the afternoon program covered the topics “Hydrological analysis and modelling” and “Water Allocation Planning”. It was very satisfactory to see one of ARA-Centro’s staff presenting his experience in using the WEAP model for water allocation planning in the Pungwe River Basin, which was one of the project’s goals.

More information regarding the WatPlaG project can be found on the project website.