Contact: Juan Michel, +41-22-791-6153 +41-79-507-6363, media@wcc-coe.org

MEDIA ADVISORY, June 6 /Standard Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Christian Johannessen (*) [Free high resolution photo available, see below]

The massive dams built by South Africa and Lesotho in the mountain kingdom's highlands have proven a success for the economies of both countries. The Christian Council of Lesotho is worried, however, that the residents displaced by the project are bypassed when it comes to the benefits.

Malethibela Lits'esane (35) gazes up to the mountains surrounding the village of Ha Makhalanyane in Lesotho, the kingdom encompassed by mighty South Africa. She longs for the life she once lived several miles beyond those mountains. Five years have passed since she and her husband Emmanuel (36) were forced from their village of Lamapong Ha Koporala. When the Mohale dam was built, many of the people living in the surrounding area were resettled to other locations. Two of them were the Lits'esanes.

Malethibela Lits'esane carries a jug that she uses to water the small field where the couple grows food, where their sole cow grazes and some chickens peck for food. The garden-sized patch bears no comparison with the pastures by the Mohale dam, where the livestock used to find food, and the people herbs and firewood.

While the Lesotho Highlands Water Project raises millions of dollars each month - much needed revenue for this relatively poor country - it has hardly benefited the people who had to make way for the dams.

Running water - six months a year

During the rainy season, Malethibela can fill up her jug from a tap placed between the cluster of houses which make up her neighbourhood. From the end of July till January her everyday life changes. Drought comes creeping in, and the community tap runs dry.

Malethibela then has to walk for four to five hours to bring water back home. She will carry 20-40 litres of water on her head, having no chance of bringing back the 30-50 litres per person which the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme considers the daily minimum. During the drought it is impossible for the Lits'esanes and their neighbours to grow any vegetables, and they have to take the cattle to far-away grazing areas. This is far from what they were promised when they were told they had to resettle.

In the 80-household village of Ha Mallani, situated on the hillside above the Katse dam, people are still waiting for the water tap they had been promised. Over ten years after the dam was completed they still have to rely on a few natural, unprotected springs. Above one of them, the construction company has even placed two toilets threatening to leak into the spring. Just one kilometre below lies the Katse reservoir, with water that the villagers are not allowed to access, covering their former fields.

One visible benefit of the water development project for the people of the Katse region catches the eye of travellers: almost every single one of the traditional round houses with straw roofing now has a concrete toilet next to it. Inhabitants say that health has improved, especially for children, after these toilets were built. The reason why these toilets were quickly installed in the region was to ensure that the water quality of the reservoir maintained a high standard.

Prophetic role of the church

The same year that South Africa and Lesotho signed the treaty on the binational water project, the Christian Council of Lesotho became active on behalf of the affected people. In 1986, it initiated the Church Highlands Action Group in order to empower the communities in advocacy skills regarding resettlement and compensation issues. The group had to end its work for lack of funding in 1999, but the council is now picking it up again.

"The church should play its prophetic role, and go directly to the affected communities. We look at development from a holistic point of view. Development needs to be physical, mental and moral. This is our calling. There are still people who are not properly compensated for their losses, and we are going to engage the authorities through advocacy work, "says Seeisa Mokitimi, coordinator of the council's Poverty Eradication Programme.

In April, the Christian Council of Lesotho co-hosted an international conference of the Ecumenical Water Network, which discussed mega-dam projects in relation to the human right to water.

Even though the treaty on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project established the principle that no person should be worse off because of the dams, Tom Monaheng Mahlakeng is not happy with the way compensations are handled.

"People need to get the right compensation, before the work starts. We have seen people waiting for 20 years for the compensation they were promised. The Lesotho Highlands Development Authority needs to start listening to their own treaty," said Mahlakeng, the chairman of a small organization called Survivors of Lesotho Dams (SOLD), in an interview in April.

"The way they have treated us makes me bitter," he added. In Mahlakeng's own village 173 houses were destroyed by explosions in a quarry where building material for the Mohale dam roads was extracted. Only 16 houses were rebuilt.

Masilo Phakoe, chief executive of the authority responsible for the Highlands Water Project, says that a reason for the problem in compensations is that the construction firm that was to build the toilets and the water supply in the Katse region failed to do so despite the money given for the job. Phakoe affirms they now will pick up the remaining work: "The process has been a bit slow, we are about ten years late, but now there is a programme to finish the work."

Malethibela Lits'esane looks at the house that the authorities built for her when she was resettled. It is solid, made of concrete, just like the toilet next it. But it is also very cold during the nights, and there is no firewood to be found nearby. In order to have fire to cook on, she needs to buy paraffin from the money she makes by selling chickens.

"We feel deceived by the authorities", she says. "We were promised that everything we would get at the new place was of high standards, but little has been given. Since we moved here, life has been very stressful."

[1014 words]

(*) Christian Johannessen is a freelance journalist from Norway.

Ecumenical Water Network:
http://water.oikoumene.org

Christian Council of Lesotho:
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=4955

Free high resolution photo of Malethibela Lits'esane (© Christian Johannessen/EWN):
http://oikoumene.org/fileadmin/images/wcc-main/news/2008/june/Malethibela_high.jpg

Photo gallery on dams in Lesotho:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=6004

[### SIDE BAR###]

Water politics: the mega-dam solution
During the last century more than 45,000 large dams have been built all across the world in order to harness water resources for food production, flood control, domestic use and energy generation. The World Commission of Dams, established in 1998 to review the development effectiveness of these vastly expensive projects, came to the conclusion that many dams had failed to achieve these goals, and that the impact on the affected communities and ecosystems had been greater than predicted.

Hailed as “project of the century” by the South African Institute of Civil Engineering, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project supplies South Africa with water and generates electricity for Lesotho. It was initiated in 1986 by the two countries' governments. Water is a scarce resource in South Africa. In the mountainous Lesotho, whose lowest point is 1,400 meters above sea level, the average quantity of available water exceeds national consumption by 75 times.

Three of the five planned dams are already finished: the Katse dam, the Muela dam and the Mohale dam. Water has been flowing to South Africa for a decade now, and each month the government of Lesotho receives 17 million maloti, or around 2.2 million U.S. dollars, in royalties.

According to the treaty governing the joint venture, the people affected by the project should “be enabled to maintain a standard of living not inferior to that obtained at the time of first disturbance”. But the annual compensation paid to 3,500 households, supposedly for 50 years, is too low to generate new sources of income, and it often arrives late. To date around 40 million maloti have been paid in compensation.

Masilo Phakoe, chief executive of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, on the other hand, is convinced of the dams' great benefits. The project has created jobs, enhanced people's level of skills, upgraded the infrastructure and generated large amounts of money for this relatively poor country, he insisted.

Surveys carried out by his authority showed the standard of living, income and health conditions in the rural areas had improved, Phakoe added. Still, he realized the scheme had a downside, too: "We might not have done enough in preparation of the people in the rural areas. Social and environmental issues were not high in the debate in the 1980s when we started this project. We still have work to do in order to help the affected communities, but we are working on it."

Opinions expressed in WCC Features do not necessarily reflect WCC policy. This material may be reprinted freely, providing credit is given to the author.

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 347 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.