IWR - Southern Africa FRIEND

Southern Africa FRIEND

Flow Regimes from International Experimental and Network Data

Southern Africa Region

Map of SA FRIEND countries The Southern Africa FRIEND project is a contribution to the International FRIEND programme which is part of the UNESCO IHP (International Hydrological Programme), in which the central objective is hydrology and water resources for sustainable development
(see http://typo38.unesco.org/en/about-ihp/ihp-partners/assessment.html). The Southern Africa regional FRIEND group includes Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The SA FRIEND programme was started in 1992 and is now in its Fourth Phase. During the first three phases the main research participants were the University of Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), who acted as the programme coordinators, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH, Wallingford, UK), the Institute for Water Research, Rhodes University (IWR, South Africa) and the National Hydrological Services of the SADC member countries. Funding contributions for these first three phases came from UNESCO, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Water Research Commission of South Africa and the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Some of the details of activities during the first three phases of the programme can be found at:

At the end of Phase III it became difficult to establish any formal funding base for the programme and most of the activities were confined to relatively informal links with other projects (for example the EU funded WERRD and TWINBAS projects on the Okavango basin, in which CEH and the IWR participated). During the 5th International FRIEND Conference, held in Havana, Cuba during November 2006 it was decided to try and revive the activities of the Southern Africa FRIEND programme and to focus on developing cooperative research projects with a strong emphasis on developing hydrological research capacity in the region through post- graduate students. The importance of collaboration with other regional initiatives was also emphasised (see Associated Programmes).

This website represents one step in the process of re-establishing the SA FRIEND programme by providing information on past activities and links to potential partners and collaborators.