Hydropolitics versus Human Security: Implications of South Africa's Appropriation of Lesotho's Highlands Water

What is it about?

The article pays attention to the colossal Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), which exports water to South Africa and the way it provides common strategic economic and political benefits to both states. However, despite its significance for both states, the LHWP has negatively affected environmental and human security in Lesotho. The threats to environmental and humans security manifest themselves in the way in which the combination of environmental degradation and resettlement, as a consequence of the project’s construction, has a harmful effect on the livelihoods of local-level communities in Lesotho. This occurs because political leaders of both states prioritize the regional political benefits of the Project rather than its negative impact upon environmental and human security. Due to the politics of water, environmental threats in Lesotho caused by the project’s construction are overlooked.

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Why is it important?

The article is important in that it demonstrates how transboundary resources such as water and large-scale water transfer projects enhance unequal structural relationship that exists between states that share water resources especially rivers. The desire to prevent interstate conflict and maintain cooperation between such states, at the expense of environmental and human security issues, further enhances the lopsided interstate relationship.