In 2012, SADC, DBSA and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) on behalf of the German government, entered into a financing and project agreement, mandating the DBSA to serve as project executing agency responsible for managing its Regional Fund for Water. SADC and the DBSA further entered into an agency agreement on 5 May 2014, which mandates the DBSA to manage and implement the start-up phase of the Regional Fund for Water infrastructure and basic sanitation. The fund was established to strengthen the water sector coordination function of SADC and create an instrument to channel international cooperating partner contributions to the SADC water sector.
Its objective is to develop regional water and sanitation infrastructure. Through the Infrastructure Delivery Division (IDD), the DBSA is responsible for overall programme management and implementation of the fund. This responsibility entails the establishment and supervision of the project implementing unit, procurement, provision of back-office support, reviewing regional investment project proposals, and concluding financing agreements with the governments of the relevant countries and the project sponsor.
Project objectives
- Facilitate the implementation of integrated water resources management and develop related infrastructure in SADC
- Improve collaboration of member states on joint water sources
- Provide affordable, economically viable and socially sustainable access to safe water supply to the poor in SADC member states.
At the end of 2017, the programme identified and approved two projects - one in the Zambian border town of Kazungula, and a cross-border project in the border towns of Lomahasha in Eswatini and Namaacha in Mozambique.
The criteria used to select these projects included:
- Pro-poor impact
- 10% co-contribution from member states
- Projects that are part of an integrated national or regional water masterplan
- Projects that are aligned with the integrated water resources management concept
- Environmental and social impact assessment aspects
- Economic viability.
