River Awareness Kits for the Limpopo and Kunene River Basins

Hatfield Consultants has extensive experience collaborating with different River Basin Organisations and International Cooperating Partners to develop knowledge management and environmental information systems, environmental information systems, provide training and capacity building, and remote sensing and GIS services. Through this work, with significant support and direction from the GIZ Transboundary Water Management in SADC programme (Gaborone, Botswana), Hatfield has pioneered innovative approaches towards presenting water and environmental information and conducting capacity development programs through development of basin-specific ‘River Awareness Kits’ (RAKs).

The objective of a RAK is to enhance knowledge and awareness of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in a particular river basin. RAKs are typically delivered in the form of CD-ROMs and/or websites, which are highly interactive and rich in content and media.

The development team for the Limpopo and Kunene RAKs, which included staff from AHT Group AG and Hatfield Consultants, recently finalised bilingual (English and Portuguese) RAKs for these two important southern African basins. The team completed a series of User Needs and Capacity Assessment (NCA) workshops in the basin states of the Limpopo River basin, involving stakeholders identified by the Limpopo Basin Permanent Technical Committee (LBPTC) member state delegations from Mozambique; Zimbabwe; South Africa; and Botswana; and the Kunene River basin, with similar stakeholder representation from Angola and Namibia. Using the inputs from these engagements, the project team developed over 240 web-pages of reference material (in both languages) for each river basin.

More on Hatfield’s River Awareness Kits:

Hatfield Consultants has developed a number of River Awareness Kits (RAK) - interactive CD-ROM and web-based tools designed to promote sustainable management of water resources within transboundary river basins by supporting access to information and increasing transparency amongst stakeholder groups. These multi-media education and awareness raising tools provide training material for regional, national and local stakeholders in different aspects of environmental and water management. The River Awareness Kits are developed in partnership with a River Basin Organisation.

In addition to the Kunene and Limpopo, Hatfield has completed the following RAKs:

• Orange-Senqu River Awareness Kitcreated for the Orange-Senqu River Commission (ORASECOM) - www.orangesenqurak.com(2009)
• Athabasca River Awareness Kit created for the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP) - Athabasca.RiverAwarenessKit.org(2007)
• Nile River Awareness Kitcreated as part of the Nile River Basin Initiative (NBI) - Nile.RiverAwarenessKit.org(2006)
• Lower Mekong River Awareness Kit created for the Mekong River Commission -Mekong.RiverAwarenessKit.org(2003)

River Awareness Kits can also be accessed through Hatfield’s RAK homepage at: http://www.riverawarenesskit.com/

For more information, you may contact:

Mr. Grant Bruce
President and Senior Environmental Specialist
e-mail: hcp@hatfieldgroup.com
telephone: +1 604-926-3261

or

Mr. Simon Hughes
Director, Hatfield Consultants Africa
Gaborone, Botswana
Email: hca@hatfieldgroup.com
Telephone: +267-397-2661