Per capita water availability in Africa and most developing countries continue to decline with increasing population and rising needs for domestic use, livelihood and development, precipitating high potential sources of conflict. According to a one time UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, the third world war will revolve around conflicts in sharing water resources.
This course aims at equipping the participants with skills and tools necessary to preempt and manage potential conflict around sharing and managing water resources. Participants will acquaint themselves with the principles of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and how they can be used to provide a process that engages all stakeholders in prioritizing the management and protection of water resources and water catchments. The course will address the strategies which local practitioners can adopt in order to not only improve service provision but also to increase the focus on protection of the general water catchment. The course will also cover Multiple Uses of Water, as a vehicle for income generation for the communities to increase ability to pay user fees for catchment protection activities. The course will also cover the contribution of IWRM to water safety planning at the water catchments which is an important component of water quality management.