- The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), a scheme to transfer water from Lesotho’s river systems to neighboring South Africa, also aims to provide hydropower to Lesotho’s people.
- However, complainants from communities impacted and displaced by the complex of dams, water channels, feeder roads, and bridges accuse the developers of promoting the LHWP as a climate mitigation project and ignoring its impacts on their livelihoods and the environment, and call it “greenwashing.”
- The project is degrading the environment, polluting water streams used by residents, destroying cultivable land used to grow food crops, eating into forests, and reducing access to pastures, according to the complaint filed with the African Development Bank (AfDB), which is partly financing the LHWP.
- “We are not just being denied benefits from the project, we are suffering harm from it,” the complaint says.
Communities in Lesotho have filed a complaint with the African Development Bank over a controversial initiative that transfers water from the country to neighboring South Africa, one of the biggest such schemes on the African continent.
The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), currently in its second phase, is funded in part by the African Development Bank (AfDB). In the complaint submitted to the bank’s Independent Recourse Mechanism, seen by Mongabay, the complainants accuse the developers of promoting the LHWP as a climate mitigation project and ignoring its impacts on their communities and the environment, and call it “greenwashing.”
“Some in the community say they were better off without the project, because instead of bringing a development that is expected from such projects, it has, in fact, brought them poverty,” said Mosa Letsie, a lawyer at the Seinoli Legal Centre (SLC) in Lesotho. The center provides legal assistance and advice to marginalized communities and worked with the affected communities to submit the complaint. Letsie said women were disproportionately impacted. Falls short in every respect, from inadequate consultation to compensation to the lack of benefits.
The LHWP diverts water from the Senqu-Orange river system in the Lesotho highlands, through a series of dams, to the water-poor Gauteng province of South Africa, home to the country’s economic nerve center: the greater Johannesburg area. The centerpiece of phase 2 is the Polihali dam and reservoir. While the project documents explicitly state how much water will be transferred to South Africa, they make only promises about supplying hydroelectricity to Lesotho.
The aims of the project “are to ensure water security of the Gauteng Region of South Africa and improve the socio-economic development of Lesotho through improved infrastructure and potential for hydropower generation, ”an AfDB evaluation report from 2025 said.
The complaint was lodged by about 1,600 people from 18 communities directly affected by the works — primarily rural, pastoralist and farming communities in Lesotho’s Mokhotlong district — but the effects of the project are being felt by at least 72 communities in northeastern Lesotho.
The landlocked country is entirely enclosed by South Africa. Its water resources are a lifeline for its 2.3 million citizens, who use less than 10% of the available water. South Africa, its much larger and dominant neighbor, with 63 million people and an economy built on mining, manufacturing and agriculture, guzzles water and lives in a perpetual state of water scarcity.
The water transfer scheme was part of an agreement signed in 1986 between the minority apartheid government in South Africa and the then military rulers of Lesotho.
“The provisions of the agreement are slanted heavily towards supply of water to South Africa. Lesotho doesn’t have any latitude to interfere with the water supply,” said Clive Vinti, an expert in international trade law and environmental law at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He added this isn’t aligned with Lesotho’s domestic laws, which require the government to prioritize the water needs of its own citizens.
If there were water shortages in Lesotho, South Africa’s reliance on its smaller neighbor’s water could generate conflict, Vinti suggested. It’s a dependence that is likely to grow in the coming years, he said.
The central aim of phase 2 of the LHWP is to increase the rate of water transfer from 780 million cubic meters per year, which was agreed as part of phase 1, to 1,260 million m3/year (from about 27.5 billion to 44.5 billion cubic feet per year).
The implementing agencies are the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) in Lesotho and the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority in South Africa.
“LHDA does not meaningfully consult [the communities] about the development of a project that is going to shape their present livelihoods and their futures,” Letsie said, adding that those affected aren’t adequately informed about the compensation they would receive, which is often paltry and delayed.
People who are being resettled are being sent off to areas that don’t have access to power, water or adequate sanitation facilities, and are cut off from communal grazing land, the complaint says.
The construction of the entire complex of dams, water channels, feeder roads and bridges in the region is degrading the environment, polluting water streams used by residents, destroying cultivable land used to grow food crops, eating into forests, and reducing access to pastures, the complaint adds.
“We are not just being denied benefits from the project, we are suffering harm from it,” the complaint says.
Phase 2 of the LHWP is coming at a cost of nearly 32.6 billion rand (about $1.9 billion). The AfDB loan amounts to 1.3 billion rand ($75 million), while the New Development Bank (formerly BRICS Development Bank, established in 2015 by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has sanctioned a loan of 3.2 billion rand, about 10% of the cost. The remaining finance comes from other multilateral banks or through bonds issued by the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority.
Project proponents estimate that 85,000 people in Lesotho will benefit from it, citing infrastructure and community development projects. The Lesotho state will earn an estimated 1.45 billion rand ($83.8 million) in royalties; the target is 1.6 billion ($92.5 million).
“The way the agreement is set up now, it’s essentially a contractual arrangement; you give me water, I pay you,” Vinti said. “The agreement doesn’t really read like an environmental agreement. It ignores underlying environmental principles like equitable, reasonable utilization, and sustainable development.”
Despite its abundant water resources, Lesotho’s water security could be compromised in a changing climate. A World Bank report warned that the country could face shortages in the future and struggle to meet its domestic water demand.
“There needs to be a water sharing regime that speaks to equity and sustainability, to cater for emergencies like water scarcity, but also to cater to climate change concerns,” Vinti said.
The mini hydropower plant at Polihali will have a capacity of 4 megawatts. AfDB officials and the LHDA did not clarify what the power will be used for or to whom it will be supplied.
The complaint to the AfDB notes that “even though the existing dams generate renewable electricity that drives massive profits for investors, the surrounding communities have neither affordable power nor a share in the earnings.”
LHWP phase 1 included the construction of the Katse and Mohale dams and the Muela hydropower station, which was inaugurated in 2004.
“The communities are not in any way against the project going on. Before water flows across borders, their rights, livelihoods, and safety must be protected,” Letsie said. “They are not trying to block it; they are demanding a better deal.”
Eskendir Alemseged Demissie, the principal water and sanitation engineer at the AfDB, directed Mongabay’s questions to the LHDA. He added, “I don’t have any comment at this stage as the complaint has been submitted to the Bank’s Independent Recourse Mechanism.”
The Lesotho Highlands Development Authority had not responded to Mongabay’s questions by the time this story was published.
“We remain true to our work and purpose, which is to transform project-affected people into project beneficiaries,” LHDA chief executive Tente Tente said at a conference in March, where the LHDA provided updates about the project and brought up challenges affecting project execution.
The conference was attended by government officials, representatives of the affected communities, international development partners and private sector actors.
“When it comes to community issues, land use restoration matters, there is a lot of criticism that is directed towards the LHDA,” Tente said, adding, “We accept our vulnerabilities, but at the same time, there is a lot of good that we are doing.”
The next phase of the LHWP is set to be completed by 2030.
However, Letsie at the SLC said the AfDB complaint serves a larger purpose than highlighting grievances from a single project. She said it’s a first step toward reevaluating the engagement between Lesotho and its much larger neighbor.
Banner image: Pastoralists in Lesotho. Image by Michalabraham via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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