LAKE VICTORIA BASIN

Institutional Arrangements

As a resource that is not only shared by all partner states of the EAC, but also provides the headwaters to the Nile River Basin, management of the LVB requires a coordinated approach. Benefits can be realized equitably through coordination in the use and management of transboundary resources and services such as fisheries, inland transport, power generation, climate regulation, transboundary conservation and the management of international water towers. The Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC), a specialized institution of the EAC, coordinates all activities in the LVB, with the primary goal of ensuring coordinated and sustainable development. The establishment of the LVBC is provided for under article 114 of the 1999 Treaty establishing the EAC, in which the partner states designated the Lake Victoria and

its Basin as an economic growth zone that should be exploited in a coordinated manner. This is highlighted in the first East African Cooperation Development Strategy (1997-2000) (EAC 1999). In order to fulfil the East African Cooperation Development Strategy, a study to determine the legal and institutional arrangements for managing the Basin was commissioned in 2000 by the EAC Secretariat. The study culminated in the establishment of the Lake Victoria Development Programme Unit (LVDP) in 2001, at the EAC Secretariat in Arusha. The Unit led the negotiations for the Protocol for the Sustainable Development of Lake Victoria Basin, which was concluded on 29 November, 2003, and ratified by the partner states in December 2004. The LVBC was formally established by the EAC Council of Ministers in

Settlements on the shorelines of Jinja, Uganda

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