Zambezi Watercourse Commission Mozambique and flowing to the Indian Ocean. The Zambezi basin also includes parts of Malawi and Tanzania. The Zambezi is the fourth largest river in Africa after the Nile, Congo and Niger. The eight Zambezi Basin riparian states that participate in ZAMCOM are Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. ZAMCOM operations are in line with the revised SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses. The SADC Protocol was adopted in 1995 and by SADC member states, including all Zambezi riparian states, and came into force in 1998. Seven of the riparian states signed the ZAMCOM Agreement on 13 July
Zambezi sourced from the same great internal lake. The Portuguese were also told that the Mozambican Espirito Santo "river" (actually an estuary formed by the Umbeluzi, Matola and Tembe rivers) was sourced from a lake (hence its outlet became known as Delagoa Bay). As a result, several old maps depict the Zambezi and the "Espirito Santo" rivers converging deep in the interior, at the same lake. However, the Bisa-derived etymology is not without dispute. In 1845, W.D. Cooley, examining Pereira's notes, concluded the term "Zambezi" derives not from the Bisa people, but rather from the Bantu term "mbege"/"mbeze" ("fish"), and consequently