Zambezi River System Action Plan

Zambezi River System Action Plan (ZACPLAN)^[1] is a multinational plan under the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to incorporate effective use, and management of the Zambezi River system.^[2] It encompasses eight countries: Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The Zambezi river basin is used by all these Southern African countries; this plan attempts to manage resources collectively amongst, and between SADCC Nations to reasonably meet national, and international goals for water resources.^[2] Due to the immense river basin formed by the Zambezi River together with its tributaries, the Zambezi River System Plan is a culmination of a UN commission, to focus on the projection that the demand for the basins water resources would increase. This competition creates negative utilization, and inefficient use of resources for all these countries in a profitable manner.^[2][3]

Early negotiations of this plan started in the early 1980s to come up with goals to prioritize in utilizing the Zambezi River basin. A listing of goals in the form of Category I project, and Category II project were devised. Initial discussions relating to the Category I and Category II projects were initially disagreed upon, as political relations between resources, and countries could not come to an agreements of initial projects.^[3]