Management issues, including environmental protection, conservation and sustainable development have to deal with problems relating to, both water quantity and quality, potential conflicts between users, pollution sources from industry, mining, agriculture, watershed management practices and the need to protect ecologically fragile areas. The riparian countries have for some time recognized that a basin-wide integrated approach has to be applied in order to find sustainable solutions to these problems and that this approach must be anchored through strong political will. The development of this strong political will is one of the key initiatives of SADC, in particular the Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses and the establishment of the Orange-Senqu River Basin Commission (ORASECOM). These initiatives are intended to facilitate the implementation of the complicated principles of equitable and beneficial uses of a shared watercourse system. It is accepted by all countries that the management of water resources should be carried out on a basin-wide scale with the full participation of all affected parties within the river basin. Water supply in terms both of quantity and quality for basic human needs is being outstripped by the demands within and outside of the basin. Meeting the water supply needs of rapidly growing towns and cities at the same time having sufficient water of an acceptable quality to meet existing and proposed irrigation and other demands (including environmental) further downstream is a challenge for planners and decision makers and stakeholders in the Orange-Senqu river basin.