ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the evolution of interstate cooperation in the Zambezi, assesses the benefits and risks for intensifying cooperation and proposes ways to catalyse cooperation. It examines the methods through which transboundary water treaties, as well as the process through which future risks. The chapter also reviews the historic evolution of Zambezi water cooperation. The framework focuses on perceived risks and opportunities by decision-makers in countries responding to a specific prospect of cooperation. The level of voice in a cooperative framework may generate uncertainty that reduces motivation for collaboration. The chapter identifies major risks that may constrain efforts to enhance cooperation, namely equity and access, and autonomy and sovereignty. Cooperation in the context of risks, in turn, may be somewhat grey relative to the black-and-white context of cost-based cooperation. A risk-based cooperative context, by contrast, may be more focused on minimising the potential that cooperation will foreclose future development opportunities.
