Pollution Control and Other Measures to Protect Biodiversity of Lake Tanganyika (LTBP)

The project produced a draft of the Convention on the sustainable management of the Lake which represents a joint effort of senior lawyers, policy makers and key technicians from the riparian countries. As the SAP, the Convention is a participatory effort of the Lake Tanganyika riparian countries. Once signed, the Convention will become a framework for other national legislation concerning Lake Tanganyika environment protection. The country delegates expect that it will lead to other national legislation adjustments. The Convention provisions about environmental impact assessment, public awareness building and public participation in the decision making process, are new in these countries and will probably impact other domains of public life. The Convention draft produced by the riparian countries delegates after extensive national consultations is another great project achievement. The Convention will be binding for the riparian states. However, the Lake may be endangered by activities or events that occur in other countries situated in the lake proximity. Legal component evaluation The objective to formulate a regional legal framework has been achieved. A Draft Convention has been submitted as a working document for formal political negotiations, signature, ratification and implementation by the four riparian countries. It is important to note that the Draft Convention reflects international standard of law-making and, at the same time, is based on a consensus among the four countries. The Draft Convention has been prepared with the involvement of the national governments of the four riparian states Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Zambia. The national governments through lawyers from various concerned ministries provided the necessary feedback to the drafters. The present Draft appears to be accepted by the governmental institutions involved in the process. At the 6th Steering Committee Meeting it became clear that these governmental institutions are prepared to mobilize more support for the Draft Convention at the national levels through further consultations with other concerned ministries and departments. An indicator of such commitment also is the support of the Strategic Action Program which provides for provisional institutional arrangements at the regional level. It can, therefore, be concluded that the governments will do all necessary, so that formal negotiations on the Draft Convention may start very soon.

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According to the declaration of the interviewed countries' delegates, the countries are committed to implementing the SAP according to the guidelines of the Convention. Implementation of this commitment requires SAP approval by technical ministries and development planning authorities within the countries. The formal approval would require the signing of the Convention by the respective governments. The countries' representatives stressed, that although for the time being there is no major direct government investment in realization of the objectives designed by the project, the project only recently started to propose specific actions to implement. In fact, the SAP was proposed for consideration to the Steering Committee less than one month ago. In the meantime, the countries' governments provided the project with requested facilities and detached its staff to participate in the project's launched activities and organized meetings. In fact, the results of the project's findings show that support of the proposed actions is not only a matter of commitment to ecological ethics or a will to preserve biodiversity, but the easiest way to assure the habitants of the Lake shores decent living conditions.

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In general, the project was very successful in executing the activities that were independent (or almost independent) of the local security conditions. The process of drafting the Strategic Action Program was an example of this efficiency. The preliminary draft of the plan was produced as early as 1996. It was subsequently improved and replaced by one that was extensively discussed in national workshops. In fact, the project provided the national groups (purposely created to discuss the plan) with GEF guidelines and assistance assuring regional coherence of this document. The Lake threats diagnosis, and the protection plan were produced by national technicians and decision makers. Creation of conditions allowing national ownership of the Strategic Action Program is one of the project's greatest achievements. The Program, however, was drafted and finalized well before the final write-up of the specific studies. As a consequence, the technical (or scientific) justification of many of the envisaged actions is not as specific as it could be. Both the TDA, SAP and the Diagnosis are at the stage where they indicate the actions and rank them in priority order. Such a regionally agreed upon inventory of Lake protection priorities is a great and lasting achievement of the project. It is also an example for other regions facing a similar need to produce a common international coherent environment protection program. There is, however, a need for the next steps that will assure implementation of the program: endorsement of the priorities by the governments, incorporation of the Plan into the national development and investment programs, preparation of specific implementation proposals and investment projects2. These actions should be assured after the project termination (According to the initial project's work plan, beginning implementation of these investments should take place before the project termination; however, the implementation delays and difficult humanitarian situation of the region delayed the project's program implementation.)