Lesotho Highlands Water Project

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) is an ongoing water supply project with a hydropower component, developed in partnership between the governments of Lesotho and South Africa. It comprises a system of several large dams and tunnels throughout Lesotho and delivers water to the Vaal River System in South Africa. In Lesotho, it involves the rivers Malibamatso, Matsoku, Senqunyane, and Senqu. It is Africa's largest water transfer scheme.

The purpose of the project is to provide Lesotho with a source of revenue in exchange for the provision of water to South Africa, as well as generate hydroelectricity for Lesotho. As of 2015, royalties paid by South Africa to the Lesotho government amount to R780 million, equivalent to about 5 percent of Lesotho's state income outside of taxes. The hydro-electric power has enabled Lesotho to become self-sufficient in electricity production, however criticisms have included loss of livelihoods for displaced people and ecological impacts.

Efforts to create a dam in the location were spearheaded by then British High Commissioner Sir Evelyn Baring in the 1950s, after initially being conceived by the South African civil engineer Ninham Shand while carrying out investigations commissioned by the British Government into the rivers of Lesotho. As initially conceived, the project was known as the Oxbow Scheme.

After a feasibility study was conducted between August 1983 and August 1986 by the German-British Lahmeyer MacDonald Consortium, the project eventually began to be realized. The project has been alleged to have had negative social and environmental effects. While compensation was provided in kind and paid to the few hundred households affected by the dams, there is criticism that it was insufficient.

In recent years, water from the scheme has been discharged into the Mohokare (Caledon) river to provide water to Maseru in times of critical shortages. The new dams have filled as anticipated and discharge of water from the dams into the downstream rivers continues in a scheme devised to preserve ecological balances. This discharged water flows to the Senqu (Orange) and while preserving the ecological status quo benefits only those communities along the rivers.^{[citation needed]}

The project has had an important impact on Lesotho's infrastructure, as hundreds of kilometers of engineered paved roads were built in order to improve access to the different construction sites, together with engineered unpaved 'feeder' roads around the dams.

Since its inception, the project has been dogged by corruption which has resulted in a number of court cases involving both individuals and multinational corporations.

Below is an overview of the main features of the first three phases of the project.