Downstream Namibia and Botswana are among the driest countries in the world, but derive great consumptive and non-consumptive benefits from the river. Namibia views the river as the only dependable source of water and proposes to construct a pipeline to divert water to the country’s arid centre where most of the population is concentrated. Arid Botswana depends on the river for both existing and planned agriculture. But the river‘s primary function is to sustain a vibrant ecosystem and the attendant tourism industry in the spectacular, wildlife-rich Okavango Delta, the world’s largest wetland under the Ramsar Convention.