Kigali August 10, 2012

Members of National technical advisory committee (NTAC) of the Lake Victoria Environment Project II (LVEMP II) met in a one day workshop to discuss the draft terms of reference for the studies to be carried out by the project. Also during the workshop, the project’s action plan was presented to the stakeholders.

Speaking to the participants, the Deputy Director General of Integrated Water Resources Management in Rwanda Natural Resources Authority (RNRA), Kabalisa Vincent de Paul reminded of the importance of LVEMP II project in Rwandan context.

“It has been clear that Rwanda has a great role to play in LVEMP project. Rwanda’s consideration in LVEMP II, is therefore an opportunity for us to address some critical areas like watershed and wetlands management and others.”Kabalisa mentioned.

In her opening remark, Eng Coletha Ruhamya the Deputy Director General of REMA mentioned how much the project fits into all aspects of Environment Management in Rwandan context.

“ LVEMP II is a very important project to Rwanda given that the Lake Victoria basin covers 17,646 Km2 , meaning 67% of the country’s total surface and 11% of the whole Lake Victoria basin. The project encompasses a lot of aspects of environment management like pollution control, water monitoring, etc”

The DDG also asked the participants to come up with clear and implementable Terms of reference for the project’s studies.

“From this workshop, we expect to have tangible and implementable Terms of Reference that will help the project achieve its targets. The TORs will also help to measure the success of our project and predict what would be the way forward after the project lifetime.”

The 12 studies whose ToRs were discussed fall under two main categories namely Integrated Water Resources, watershed and wetland management as well as environment and pollution. The studies will address various issues such as Impacts of watershed management interventions on the livelihoods of participating households, impact on Gikondo and Nyabugogo wetland systems, water monitoring, sewerage system, pollution level assessment, wetland conservation and communication strategies, as well as the revision and harmonization of national policies, regulations and regulatory standards.

The second technical workshop follows the kick off NTAC workshop held on 8^th March 2012 which aimed at preparing the implementation strategy and annual work plan for the year 2012/13.

LVEMP was initially formulated and implemented by the three countries riparian to the shores of the lake (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania). It was later recommended that a new phase of LVEMP should include the two countries (Burundi and Rwanda) in recognition of their upstream locations, so as to address the trans-boundary environmental issues from holistic, basin-wide approaches. LVEMP II Rwanda has 4 components which are (i) Strengthening institutional capacity for managing shared water and fisheries resources; (ii) Point sources pollution control and prevention; (iii) Watershed management; and (iv) Project coordination and management.