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CIWA’s Impact in GHG Mitigation: Kariba Dam Rehabilitation Case Study

CIWA’s Impact in GHG

Mitigation: Kariba Dam

Rehabilitation Case Study

he Kariba Dam Rehabilitation understanding. Second, CIWA which is critical during the dry season.
T
Project (KDRP) has produced a financed a dam break analysis to Upon completion of the rehabilitation
series of climate resilience and evaluate the socioeconomic and works, it is projected that 3 million
mitigation benefits, crucial in the environmental consequences of a people will benefit from reduced
Southern Africa region, which is facing potential dam failure, which was later disaster risks and US$8 billion of
growing water insecurity from delegated to KDRP to become a assets will be better protected from
prolonged droughts. component of the Bank-financed extreme flooding. Finally, hydropower
operation. Third, the CIWA team can play a key role in reducing the
The Zambezi River Basin is a rainfed supported the resolution of a carbon intensity of electricity in
watershed, highly vulnerable to both long-term debt dispute between Southern Africa, which currently
44
extreme floods and droughts. While Zambia and Zimbabwe over the Kariba largely depends on coal. The
the last major flooding took place in complex. Rebuilding trust and operation of Kariba Hydro-Electric
2013, Southern Africa has more dialogue was a prerequisite for the Scheme helps mitigate a total of 10.17
recently been gripped by severe complex international arrangement mtCO2eq annually.
droughts, which reached historic around Kariba’s rehabilitation.
levels in 2024. 43 The most important long-term
In terms of climate resilience and benefit from CIWA’s activities might
The Kariba Dam and Hydro-Electric mitigation, the dam and lake provide be the improvement of cooperation
Scheme is the largest hydropower an invaluable source of water storage between Zambia and Zimbabwe
installation on the Zambezi River, with for human use, fisheries, and through the ZRA. Cooperation over
a combined installed capacity of 2,130 agriculture, which is vitally important international waters itself contributes
MW. It was built in the 1950s, creating to mitigate the effects of drought in to climate resilience, as countries
Kariba Lake, the world’s largest artificial the region. The dam also ensures a coordinate their response to the
lake by volume. Located at the border constant flow throughout the year, changing climate.
between Zambia and Zimbabwe, the
Kariba Dam Hydro-Electric Scheme is
jointly operated and maintained by the
two countries of the Zambezi River
Authority (ZRA). The power stations
account for 37 and 42 percent of the
total generation capacity of Zambia and
Zimbabwe, respectively. After more than
50 years of operation, the Kariba Dam
needed time-sensitive rehabilitation of
degraded parts of the structure.

From its inception in 2011, CIWA
selected the Zambezi as one of its
priority basins of engagement. CIWA
facilitated dialogue between riparian
countries to advance the crucial
rehabilitation of the Kariba Dam. In
particular, the Zambezi River
Development Project paved the way
for the subsequent World Bank’s KDRP.
CIWA’s influence on the KDRP was
threefold: first, the ZRA had not yet
been a client of the World Bank, and
CIWA’s upstream engagement with it
helped build a common

43 NASA Earth Observatory, Severe Drought in Southern Africa https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152711/severe-drought-in-southern-africa
81 44 SADC Energy Pillar. https://www.sadc.int/pillars/energy