Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania formally launched a $7.12 million initiative to jointly manage the Ruvuma River Basin and its coastal ecosystems at an inception workshop on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in Dar es Salaam, marking the start of a five-year effort to protect one of southeastern Africa’s most vital – and most vulnerable – shared waterways.
The project, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and led by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), represents the first comprehensive attempt to manage the 155,000-square-kilometre basin using a “source-to-sea” approach that treats land, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems as a single interconnected system.
The two-day workshop at the Johari Rotana Hotel is laying the foundation for long-term transboundary cooperation and reinforce shared commitments among the three riparian states toward sustainable basin and coastal management.
A river under pressure
The Ruvuma River serves as a vital water source for communities, agriculture and industries across all three countries, but the basin faces mounting threats that have outpaced efforts to manage it.
Climate change has brought unpredictable rainfall patterns and extreme weather events to the region. Comprehensive management plans remain absent, hampering sustainable use and conservation of the basin’s resources.
Reliable data is scarce, and local communities have had limited involvement in decisions affecting the waterway they depend on.
The project aims to address these gaps by safeguarding ecosystem integrity, strengthening climate resilience and supporting inclusive, sustainable livelihoods across the basin and its coastal zones.
Three countries, one basin
The Ruvuma River Basin spans three countries unevenly. Mozambique accounts for roughly 100,000 square kilometers – about 65% of the total basin area. Tanzania covers approximately 52,000 square kilometers, or 34%.
Malawi’s share is the smallest at 2,500 square kilometers, less than 2% of the basin, but the country’s participation is considered essential for integrated management from the river’s headwaters to the Indian Ocean.
Implementation will be anchored in regional and national institutions across all three states, with transboundary coordination mechanisms serving as custodians for basin-level governance.
Major investment
The GEF approved the full-sized project in August 2025, committing a grant of $7,122,018. Member states and partners have pledged co-financing commitments totaling $65.49 million, bringing the total investment envelope to more than $72 million over the project’s five-year lifespan through December 2030.
The initiative is being executed by Global Water Partnership (GWP) Southern Africa and Wetlands International Eastern Africa in partnership with the Joint Development and Management of the Rovuma/Ruvuma River Basin body.
Two years in the making
The project followed an extensive preparation process.
The GEF approved the initial concept note in January 2024, triggering a 12-month development phase that included stakeholder consultations across the basin – in Malawi’s Southern Coast Basin, Mozambique’s ARA Norte region and Tanzania’s Ruvuma and Southern Coast areas between November and December 2024.
A validation workshop was held in Lilongwe, Malawi, in January 2025, followed by endorsement from GEF focal points in all three countries before the project received final approval.
Source-to-sea approach
The project’s source-to-sea framework distinguishes it from conventional river basin management initiatives by explicitly recognising that activities upstream – deforestation, agricultural runoff, pollution – directly affect coastal and marine ecosystems hundreds of kilometres downstream.
For communities along the Ruvuma and its tributaries, the approach offers the promise of management decisions informed by the full picture rather than fragmented national perspectives.
As climate change intensifies pressure on shared water resources across Africa, the Ruvuma project could serve as a model for transboundary cooperation in a continent where more than 60 international river basins cross national borders – and where competition for water is expected to grow sharply in the decades ahead.
By Winston Mwale, AfricaBrief