Dr. Michael James Tumbare

Title: Transboundary Water Management Expert

Institution: Global Water Partnership Southern Africa & Africa Coordination Unit

Email: mjtumbare@gmail.com

Dr. Tumbare holds a PhD in Engineering Technology, an MBA, a Postgraduate Diploma in Hydrology and a BSc (Hons) Civil Engineering degree. He is a Fellow of the Zimbabwe Institution of Engineers (FZweIE), the Institute of Civil Engineers (FICE) (UK) and the Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences (FZAS). He is also a Professional Engineer (Zimbabwe), a Chartered Engineer (UK) and is gazetted as an approved Engineer for Dams and Large Dams in Zimbabwe.

Dr. Tumbare is currently the Director of the Department of Engineering Infrastructure and Estates at the University of Zimbabwe with a complement of 55 staff responsible for Campus and Agro-Industrial Park infrastructure planning and designs, infrastructure maintenance, capital projects execution, water supply security, energy and power management, vehicle maintenance, workshops, processing plant operations and maintenance. This was after serving the University of Zimbabwe for 10 years as an academic.

He served for 16 years as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) managing the operations at Kariba Dam and the Lake Kariba, the largest man-made lake in the world He spent 11 years in the Zimbabwe civil service and 5 years in the private sector in Botswana. During this whole cumulative 32 years of practical experience, Dr. Tumbare designed, constructed, maintained and managed infrastructure from buildings to dams to water supply systems.

Over the past 42 years since graduating with the BSc (Hons) Civil Engineering degree, Dr. Tumbare has thus attained expertise in: Water resources infrastructure design, development and management; Hydrology and hydraulic infrastructure design; Formulation of infrastructure development and management policies and strategies; Construction supervision; Infrastructure monitoring, maintenance and operation; and Human capacity development and implementation strategies. This expertise has been applied in several successful consultancy services that he has undertaken both as Team Leader and as part of Task Teams. He has consequently published several books and numerous professional journal articles in the field of water resources and infrastructure development and management.