Towards agreement on the establishment of the Luapula River and Lake Mweru Authority
Image: Luapula River Basin, Wwikipedia
27 Jan 2025 by The Water Diplomat

From 4-6 December 2024, the Secretariat of the Water Convention supported a second round of negotiations for the Agreement on the Establishment of the Luapula River and Lake Mweru Authority. The envisaged Agreement is to be entered into by Republic of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), establishing a transboundary river basin organisation which would oversee the joint development of water resources in the Luapula River Catchment. During this second session, the participants were involved in a refresher training engaged in a training that made use of the UNECE’s ‘ Practical Guide to Development Agreements and Other Arrangements for Transboundary Cooperation’. In the course of the discussions, the Parties agreed on priority areas of cooperation, the definition of institutional structures for joint management, and on the roadmap for the finalisation of the agreement.
Earlier, in April 2024, UNECE facilitated the first round of technical and planning negotiations of the draft Agreement on the Establishment of the Luapula River and Lake Mweru Authority between the DRC and Zambia. During this first round, the Parties exchanged views and discussed both the substantive aspects of the proposed agreement and the procedural mechanisms through which they are seeking to reach the final agreement.
Earlier discussions and initiatives in the Basin
The progress towards the establishment of this authority has been continuing for at least a decade, in which the potential for electricity production has played a central role. The Luapula River is seen to have significant potential for the generation of hydropower, estimated at 1,116 MW - of which 776MW is firm capacity - with five sites along the river having been identified for potential development. On both sides of the border, significant demand for electricity was identified for mining in the Katanga Province of the DRC as well as in the Zambian Copperbelt. In addition, the projects were seen to potentially contribute significantly to regional power pools.
In 2015, the governments of the DRC and the Republic of Zambia signed an intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding for the joint development of generation projects in the Luapula River Basin as well as for a new power interconnector between the two countries. In parallel, an agreement between DRC’s national power utility (SNEL) and its Zambian counterpart, Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO), was signed at the same time, aiming to further the development of the project as a joint venture by the end of 2018. in 2018, a new MOU was signed by the energy ministers of the DRC and Zambia which set out a timetable for the joint development of a hydropower project in the Luapula River. The project was identified as a priority by various regional bodies, including the Southern African Power Pool Plan, the Southern African Development Community, and the Programme Infrastructure Development for Africa (PIDA) of the African Union.
A pre-feasibility study was carried out in 2019 by EDF (France) & GIBB (South Africa), which looked into the viability of three sites - Mumbotuta CX, Mambilima I and Mambilimba II - with an estimated total hydropower potential capacity in the order of 627 MW. with a potential of about 800MW for further investigation within a more detailed feasibility study. The study also involved a preliminary screening of the potential environmental and social impacts of such interventions. On the basis of this study, the power companies decided to prioritise the development of SNEL and ZESCO decided to prioritise the Mumbotuta CX site, at the Mombutota waterfalls which was estimated to have a hydroelectric potential of 271MW and average annual energy of 1,322GWh. It was in the context of the discussions on the pre-feasibility study that the government of the Republic of Zambia proposed the creation of a Luapula River Authority to facilitate the sustainable management and utilisation of the Luapula River. The pre-feasibility study was followed by the approval by the African Development Bank of a feasibility study on this project, which was completed in 2021.
About the Luapula River Basin
The Luapula River Basin is a basin in Central Africa, contributing to the upper sections of the Congo River watershed. 73.3% of the basin is located in Northern Zambia (flowing through Luapula, Central, Northern and Muchinga Provinces) and 26.7% is located within the DRC. The basin occupies a surface area of 173,386 km², and the Luapula River, which is some 560 km in length, defines the boundary between the Republic of Zambia and the DRC along its course. The river originates in the Bangweulu swamps, a wetland ecosystem adjacent to Lake Bangweulu in Northern Zambia which is recognised by the Ramsar Convention as one of the worlds most important wetlands, occupying an area of 9850km² and supporting a great diversity of flora and fauna. The Luapula River fatures a number of waterfalls along its northern route and ultimately flows into Lake Mweru. Lake Mweru is a freshwater lake which is some 110 km in length, and it supports a large and diverse fish population which is a source of local livelihoods, with many fishing villages located on its shores. The fish catch is currently declining due to overfishing.
The Luapula River has been the subject of reflections with regard to the possibility of achieving an interbasin transfer scheme from the Luapula to the Kafue River Basin – the latter basin featuring growing water demand for a range of needs including municipal use, irrigation, industrial and hydropower generation. Zambia’s national and regional water demand has come into sharp focus recently amid a severe drought in Southern Africa in 2024 which has undermined hydropower production in the country and damaged agricultural output on a million hectares of ground across 84 of the country’s l116 districts