Infrastructure development is seen as one of the key investment areas in enhancing water security in Africa. This project aimed to build climate resilience into the infrastructure planned for the Lower Limpopo River Basin, Mozambique.

The infrastructure development aims to not only ensure water security for the citizens of the Lower Limpopo Basin in periods of water scarcity, but to ensure that the citizens are spared from the impacts of water abundance that may result in flooding and changing conditions, such as climate change.

This project highlights the advantages of integrating all essential considerations (including socio-economic, environmental and economic aspects) during all the stages of the project preparation cycle to ensure that the most optimal engineering solution is sought. This will be achieved through a comprehensive set of pre-feasibility, feasibility studies and assessments, which the Africa Water Facility (AWF) is supporting.

CDKN will compliment this work through its support of ARA-Sul (the Southern Region Water Administration within the Ministry of Public Works, Housing and Water Resources, Mozambique) to strengthen the incorporation of essential considerations (socio-economic, environmental and atmospheric aspects) into the studies, as well as ensuring that the benefits of the project are clearly communicated.

The supplier, Pegasys, provided technical assistance that assisted the successful execution of the infrastructure development as a whole, the integration of climate resilience in the project cycle, and will assure technical review of the studies to be developed (not only from a climate science perspective but for their overall technical quality, rigor and environmental, socio-economic standards).

The project served as a knowledge-generation opportunity for similar projects across Africa and other developing countries.

Ultimately, this project will support the Government of Mozambique with the design and development of a large-scale water infrastructure project in the Limpopo Basin that would provide a significant long-term response to the challenges posed by climate change and hydrological variability.

Budget: £289,020

Timeframe: February 2015-January 2017