The overall objective of the work package is to attain an overall understanding of how better management practices could reduce water demand in the irrigation sector in the Orange-Senqu River Basin, and to make recommendations on improved water demand management in this sector in the future. In order to reach this goal a number of sub-objectives were identified in the terms of reference:

• Building up of a GIS Database irrigation inventory through the collection and collation of reliable and detailed information about the use of irrigation water by crops and crop yields
• Assessment of various instruments for enhancing productive use of water, e.g. water markets and their operation in a local as well as trans-boundary context
• Detailing the best management practices for irrigation in the basin;
• Selection and evaluation of demonstration projects of best practices at suitable sites;

This working paper reports back on activities a, b, d, e, f, g and h. Section 2 provides a brief overview of the approach and methodology. Section 3 effectively covers a and b, providing a detailed overview of water conservation and water demand management in the irrigation sector in each of the basin states. Regulatory, institutional, technological and agronomic aspects are covered. It should be noted that there is very little irrigation in Botswana and none within the area of the basin. For this reason only a background to the sector and a review of the general regulatory and institutional frameworks are provided for this country. For both Lesotho and Namibia some detail on the irrigation sector as a whole is provided. The focus is not only on water demand management and water conservation. Less of this background has been provided for South Africa in Section 3, since much of it is provided in later sections of the report when several of the major schemes in South Africa are described in some detail.

The analysis of best management practices (e, h above) was carried out initially through a combination of site visits and stakeholder workshops covered in Sections 4 and 5. During this process a great deal was learnt about the caveats and realities (see b above) of many theoretical best practices when tested on the ground. During the stakeholder workshops, a number of best management practice sites were identified and then visited and evaluated (see h above) by the team. The results of these visits are described in Section 6. Finally all the knowledge gleaned during the whole process was used to prepare the conclusions and recommendations that are presented in Section 7. These conclusions and recommendations are of both a general and specific nature. The team feels that there are fundamental general aspects and issues on which general recommendations have been based and made, and which ORASECOM will is encouraged to support. At the same time some recommendations of a more specific nature have been made. These are often technical or semitechnical measures which could be implemented relatively immediately and for which ORASECOM could perhaps secure donor funding either as part of Phase 3 of GTZ support or from other sources.