10025199-Applying the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation approach to strenghten governance in the water sector in Lesotho

Description of project:

Lesotho faces significant socio-economic challenges, including poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and high HIV/AIDS prevalence. Thanks to its geographical location, Lesotho - the "Water Tower" of Southern Africa - plays a critical role in regional water security, supplying water to South Africa, with additional regional transfer schemes under consideration. Protecting and sustainably managing Lesotho"s water resources is therefore a national and regional priority.

However, Lesotho"s catchments have been heavily degraded due to settlement in sensitive areas, overgrazing and unsustainable land use, causing erosion, soil fertility loss, sedimentation and hydrological instability. Climate change intensifies these impacts with erratic rainfall, floods and droughts. Despite numerous sustainable natural resource management efforts over the past 50 years, impacts and sustainability have often fallen short, largely due to insufficient coordination among ministries and institutions. Strengthened cooperation, knowledge and data sharing, and aligned action among key actors at national, river basin, and SADC levels are essential.

Against this backdrop, the Government of Lesotho, supported by the European Union (EU) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), has launched ReNOKA, a national Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) programme. ReNOKA aims to restore and sustainably manage Lesotho"s catchments-critical for water, land, energy, and food security across the Orange-Senqu basin and the Gauteng economic hub. For the continued support to ReNOKA, GIZ has been commissioned to implement the "Support to ReNOKA" joint action funded under the EU Multi-Donor Action "Metsi a Lesotho" and the BMZ-funded "Transboundary Water Management in the SADC Region" (TWM) project.

The overall objective of "Metsi a Lesotho" is to "ensure access to sustainable water and sanitation for all as a means for green and resilient growth and promoting peace and security in Lesotho and the region". The specific objectives are:

- Specific Objective 2: "Lesotho sustainably manages its water and land resources comprising the water-energy-natural resources nexus and advances its climate resilience with an inclusive approach"

- Specific Objective 3: "Capacities of national water institutions to improve services and cooperation at community, catchment and transboundary levels are strengthened".

To achieve these objectives, the Action will deliver five interlinked outputs, with the following output being relevant to this service:

- Output 3.1: Enhancement of capacities of government staff for sustainable water management.

Despite earlier support that improved technical water management, coordination and communication across key institutions-from the Prime Minister"s Office to community authorities-remain weak. To address this, GIZ intends to contract a service provider to implement Output 3.1 by applying the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach in the water sector in Lesotho to address the underlying complex challenges and bottlenecks that hinder effective cooperation.