Zambezi Region with the United Kingdom. Leo von Caprivi arranged for the Caprivi strip to be annexed to German South West Africa in order to give Germany access to the Zambezi River as part of the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty. The German motivation behind the swap was to acquire a strip of land linking German South West Africa with the Zambezi River, providing easy access to Tanganyika (Tanzania) and an outlet to the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately for the Germans, the British colonisation of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe and Zambia) stopped them well upstream of Victoria Falls, which proved a considerable barrier to navigation on the Zambezi.
Zambezi River Authority Zambezi River Authority also plays a role in managing the use of water from Lake Kariba for irrigation and for domestic, industrial and institutional use. There has been tension between the countries that border the river. In the early 1990s, Zimbabwe proposed to build a pipeline to carry water south to supply the city of Bulawayo. Botswana also proposed to carry water south to Gaborone through an extension to the North-South Carrier (NSC). Some of the NSC water could be shared with South Africa. These projects raised concern with downstream countries threatened by loss of water. The question of claims