ReNOKA
Client: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Governement of Lesotho
Period: 2019-2021
Sustainable development
Multi-stakeholder partnerships
Development & multilateral
01 — The sneak-peek
We are a river
For ReNOKA — a custodianship movement initiated by the Government of Lesotho and the GIZ to protect the Orange-Senqu River Basin — BBA Liminal found a name, a face and a way for ordinary people to belong to it: turning a technical conservation mandate into a public cause the Basotho could own as guardians of the headwaters.
02 — The liminal moment
Lesotho holds the headwaters of the Orange-Senqu River Basin — water that South Africa, Namibia and Botswana all draw on, and the source of roughly 40% of Gauteng's supply. Protecting that basin rests on Integrated Catchment Management: sound science, but a phrase almost no one outside the field can hold onto, let alone rally behind.
That was the threshold. A mandate this important could not stay locked inside a scientific term the public could not engage with. BBA Liminal was asked to develop a name, a visual identity and a launch strategy to carry the work to the people of Lesotho. The deeper task was to make custodianship of the river feel native to the Basotho — not a programme handed down, but a cause they already belonged to.
03 — The transformation
We listened before we named. Through interviews and research across South Africa and Lesotho, with communication experts in both countries, we reached the Sesotho phrase *re noka* — "we are a river." A scientific mandate became a statement of shared identity.
We built a stakeholder model. Using design-thinking principles, we mapped the many communities living in and affected by the basin, so the brand and its launch answered to real needs rather than a single institutional voice — a system, not a slogan.
We rooted the identity in heritage. The ReNOKA mark is a water droplet stacked with meaning: water flowing from the mountains through the cycle, the peaks echoing the Basotho hat, an homage to a people who are guardians of the headwaters.
04 — The craft
Innovation rooted in heritage.
To launch ReNOKA, we let the identity speak in materials the Basotho already live with. With Aranda we produced a ReNOKA traditional Basotho blanket, and with Da Gama Textiles a ReNOKA shweshwe fabric — both woven through with symbols that narrate the movement's goals and the future it works toward. The mark, the website and the launch carried one idea across science, culture and cloth.
Design applications
Website
05 — The validation of purpose
The work gave a continental water challenge a name people could stand behind, and a face drawn from their own heritage. It opened with a partnership declaration — civil society and the private sector committing to coordinated action for the restoration of land and water and the long-term prosperity of all communities in the basin — and was grounded in the communities it serves through eleven work sessions held across Lesotho in 2021 to map the movement's goals, activities and resources. A scientific mandate became a shared cause.
1 partnership declaration
11 work sessions across Lesotho
40% of Gauteng's water from this basin
Naming
Brand & communications strategy
Publication & editorial design
Brand identity design
Stakeholder strategy
Systems mapping
Brand platform development
Positioning & narrative
