Globally there are 310 freshwater river basins that can be described as “transboundary,” which means that they have water resources that cross the political boundaries of two or more independent states (Wolf & McCracken, 2019). In 2017, the Strategic Action Group released its most comprehensive version of the Water Cooperation Quotient (WCQ), a report that set out to measure and rank water cooperation within no less than 231 transboundary river basins from around the world, ultimately concluding that “any two countries engaged in active water cooperation do not go to war for any reason” (Strategic Foresight Group, 2017, p. 3). But, despite the findings and the United Nations adopting the WCQ as a measurement tool (McCracken, 2017), little context has been given or explored as to when, what, why, and how the riparian states within the individual rivers basins, engage in water cooperation.
From an African perspective, this context is vital to understanding the dynamics found within the 13 major transboundary river basins that cover no less than 62% of the continent's surface area and with every continental state being part of at least one of these immense river basins (Medinilla, 2018). Therefore, how these major transboundary river basins are managed, maintained, and utilized directly impacts the African continent's environmental, social, and economic sustainability (Wolf & McCracken, 2019).
Two of the largest major transboundary river basins, the Niger and Lake Chad, reside within West Africa and received scores within the WCQ of 100 and 53.3, respectively. But as stated above, the 2017 WCQ report does not provide clear context as to why or how these two major transboundary river basins achieved the scores that they did. This context is important as West Africa has a long and often tumultuous history, sitting as it does between the Atlantic Ocean and the Sahara Desert; the region holds great potential to either develop rapidly or descend into greater instability, with disastrous results.
Therefore, this article endeavors, through discussion and analysis, to answer the question: What is the current state of water cooperation within West Africa's major transboundary river basins?
Research design and methodology
The Niger and Lake Chad river basins were chosen as the case studies for this article after combining information found within the 2017 WCQ report and the 2019 journal article “Updating the Register of International River Basins of the World” (Wolf & McCracken, 2019). A two-stage theoretical perspective will be applied to adequately discuss and analyze water cooperation within these major transboundary river basins. The first stage will utilize water cooperation theory to discuss and present the individual river basins. The second stage of analysis will utilize a wider hydropolitics perspective focused on the individual riparians at the state level. The reason behind this two-stage theoretical framework is that water cooperation is measured at the scale of the basin level, while the decision to engage in water cooperation is made by multiple individual riparians at the state level. Therefore, both perspectives need to be researched and analyzed to understand the current state of water cooperation.
The research utilized in this article has been compiled through a detailed qualitative analysis of the available and accessible reports (primary and secondary), publications, journal articles, legal documentation, video documentaries, and news reports that concern the history, current developments, cooperation, and conflicts surrounding water and water cooperation within the transboundary river basins of the Niger and Lake Chad specifically.
To assist in identifying the most relevant and current information, the research has been categorized into two sections for both river basins. The first section presents an overview of each basin's background, followed by the second section, which utilizes the ten parameters created by the 2017 WCQ report to measure the technical and political aspects of water cooperation as a benchmark to present when, where, why, and how the Niger and Lake Chad river basins satisfied, or have yet to satisfy, the individual indicators within the WCQ framework. Building on this foundation, further information and an in-depth analysis of each river basin and their developing cooperation are presented, with a particular focus on the 10-year period between 2013 and 2022.
The parameters with a short description are presented in Table 1 on next page.
WCQ Parameters and their descriptions
| Agreement | Legally binding agreement acknowledging a water relationship between riparian states. |
| Communication Mechanism | A mechanism for regular and formal communication exists between riparian states. |
| Technical Projects | The riparian states engage in collaborative scientific and technical projects concerning their shared watercourse, either basin-wide or bilaterally. |
| Exchange of Data | The riparian states agree to exchange data on quantity and quality of shared water resources where the data is collected nationally but exchanged on a regular basis through an agreed channel or it is collected and shared through a basin organization. |
| Alternative Dispute Resolution | The riparian states have a well-defined mechanism for resolving disputes. |
| Floods, Droughts, and Ecosystem Protection | The riparian states agree on long-term coordination and cooperation mechanisms to manage floods, drought, and ecosystems in a collaborative way and with explicit long-term coordination mechanisms for emergency response. |
| Water Infrastructure | Riparian states agree that all infrastructure related to transboundary water resources such as dams, reservoirs, etc. are built with active collaboration and transparency in a way that takes into account the interest of all relevant riparian states and not merely the host state of the concerned project. |
| (Riparian State) Inclusion | All states in the basin, without exception, are members of the regional or basin-wide arrangement. |
| Political Commitment | The riparian states commit to cooperate at the highest political level with either regular engagement at a level higher than water ministers, e.g., foreign ministers or heads of governments, and/or the coordination and harmonization of national laws/policies to satisfy common standards. |
| Institutional Functioning | The riparian states have a permanent, independent, and joint organization for transboundary water cooperation such as a river basin organization and make joint strategic plans. |
Sourced from the Strategic Foresight Group (2017)
Literature review
Hydropolitics
Hydropolitics is a relatively new field with growing interest and crossover with other disciplines such as political science, international relations, geography, anthropology, and sociology. A single universal definition for hydropolitics has yet to be agreed upon; thus, elements from the works of the Geneva Water Hub (2021), Warner and Nagheeby (2018), and Gábor Baranyai (2020) are combined in this article to define hydropolitics as the study of the international relations surrounding conflict, cooperation, and the authoritative allocation of values in respect to transboundary water resources.
Hydropolitics has two dominant axes that can be applied to how states view and secure their water resources: the water conflict and the water cooperation theories (Baranyai, 2020). This research focuses on the second.
Water cooperation theory
In its most basic and general sense, cooperation is when two or more parties work together to achieve a common goal. Because of this very basic understanding of cooperation and the wide array of activities and behaviors that can be associated with or considered cooperation, very few researchers or reports adequately define what cooperation is in terms of water utilization or hydropolitics. Therefore, this article will draw on elements of the works of Goulden et al. (2009), Schmeier (2018), and Baranyai (2020) to define water cooperation as the coordinated act of policy and behavioral adjustment for the purposes of shared management, operation, and use of freshwater resources at the local, national, and international levels for the mutual benefit of riparian communities and states.
Transboundary river basins in Africa
One of the most prominent studies of transboundary river basins is that written by Wolf (1998), “Conflict and cooperation along international waterways.” In this article, Wolf found that there has never been a war over water and came to this conclusion through a study of the known 261 transboundary river basins around the world and some 3,600 treaties concerning water resources (Wolf, 1998). Since then, new research and techniques have refined and expanded the number of transboundary river basins worldwide to the latest number of 310 in 2018 (Wolf & McCracken, 2019).
Along with this new clarity of data worldwide, the number of transboundary river basins in Africa has also increased, from an early conservative estimate of 58 to a more well-defined and classified 68 transboundary river basins in 2018 (Wolf & McCracken, 2019). A closer examination of these river basins found that some could be further classified as “sub- basins” within the far larger and more complex 13 major transboundary river basins spread across the continent (Wolf, 2007; Wolf & McCracken, 2019).
These findings have proven the true extent of hydropolitics on the continent and the importance of studying the basins as a whole and individually due to the interdependent nature that the riparian states share within these basins. Furthermore, Africa provided clear evidence that water cooperation is more likely to occur, with Medinilla (2018) and Olagunju et al. (2019) presenting clear examples but also highlighting that water cooperation does not preclude conflicts or tensions from occurring.
Integrated water resource management
It is a common and easy mistake to confuse water cooperation with integrated water resource management (IWRM), but these are two related but separate concepts (Medinilla, 2018; Schmeier & Blumstein, 2021). It is thanks to the work of Glaumann and Kim (2011), Medinilla (2018), Schmeier (2018), and Herrfahrdt-Pähle et al. (2019), which provided the necessary clarity presented in this article of how IWRM developed into not only an accepted global norm but also a separate foundational or technical aspect of water cooperation.
IWRM, sometimes referred to as international transboundary water management and/or transboundary water management when applied in context to particular settings, is founded on the concept that freshwater resources are a “common good.” Common goods are a group of specific resources that play a vital role in sustaining both human societal and global environmental systems, and thus they have to be shared by all peoples and are deserving of protection against all forms of overuse, degradation, and pollution (Herrfahrdt-Pähle et al., 2019). Global freshwater resources were included in this conceptual grouping by the United Nations in 1972 and have formed a part of IWRM ever since (Glaumann & Kim, 2011). Almost all of Africa's transboundary river basins organizations (TBO) have adopted IWRM as a key part of their cooperative agreements alongside the concept of freshwater resources as a common good, requiring a collective management approach to ensure that all riparian states enjoy equal rights to the sustainable use of the shared water resources, while at the same time also respecting individual state sovereignty (Medinilla, 2018).
Discussion and analysis
The Niger River Basin
Basin background
The Niger River Basin is one of the largest in Africa, and its central river, the Niger, is the third-longest river on the African continent, only surpassed by the Congo and Nile rivers in length (Sergejeff & Medinilla, 2021; Talbi et al., 2014). Drawing on the waters from no less than 11 different riparian states: Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Algeria, covering an estimated area of 2,132,200 km2 (Wolf & McCracken, 2019; World Bank, 2015). The Niger River Basin is home to an estimated 130 million people and serves as an important cultural, social, and economic hub, with a history stretching back thousands of years and providing a vital lifeline and livelihood to the largely rural populations within the arid and semi-arid Sahelian region (World Bank, 2015; Madgwick et al., 2017; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017).
The Niger River and the basin at large serve as an important natural resource that has provided the essentials of human life, such as drinking water, irrigation, cattle rearing, fishing, and transportation for much of its history (World Bank, 2015). In the modern era, its value and utility have only increased, becoming a notable source of hydroelectricity and a focal point for much-needed economic development in a region home to some of the poorest, least developed, and fragile states in the world (Sergejeff & Medinilla, 2021; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017; Talbi et al., 2014).
Niger River Basin location.
Source: by the author.
Citation: Regions and Cohesion 13, 2; 10.3167/reco.2023.130203
Agreement and riparian state inclusion
The first recorded agreement concerning international waters and water cooperation in the Niger River Basin was the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885. It was during this conference that the three major colonial powers of the region (France, Great Britain, and Germany) declared that there would be freedom of navigation along the Niger River and its tributaries (Medinilla, 2017).
Transboundary water management and water cooperation developments began to accelerate noticeably in the era of decolonization and independence during the early 1960s. A series of conferences concerning the Niger River Basin was held in which Guinea, Mali, Niger, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon participated and resulted in the 1963 Niamey Agreement (Act de Niamey), which defined the conditions for navigation and economic cooperation between basin states. A year later, in 1964, the Niger River Commission, or Commission du Fleuve Niger, was established to promote and coordinate studies of the Niger River Basin resources for future development (Medinilla, 2017; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017).
Despite early optimism and potential, the Niger River Commission and its member states made little progress in both the development of the basin's resources and in improving transboundary water cooperation (Medinilla, 2017; Sergejeff & Medinilla, 2021). A period of higher-than- average rainfall in the 1960s was followed by severe drought conditions in the following decades that saw the 30-year mean rainfall levels decreasing by as much as 40%. This overall loss of rainfall had the result of pushing significant parts of the Sahelian regions of the Niger River Basin into a food security crisis, and the Niger River reached a historic low in 1985 when the flow stopped completely at Niamey, the capital of Niger (Medinilla, 2017; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017; Talbi et al., 2014).
During this period of regional crisis, an attempt was made to invigorate and re-launch transboundary water cooperation within the Niger River Basin. In 1980 the convention creating the Niger Basin Authority (NBA) was adopted by riparian states, with the result of replacing the Niger River Commission with the NBA. The NBA was founded with the goals of speeding up interstate cooperation, strengthening institutional and legal frameworks, and promoting the coordinated development of Niger Basin resources in the sectors of water, energy, agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry, mining, transport, and communication (Seidou et al., 2021; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017). Unfortunately, the formation of the NBA reflected more of an aspiration for better cooperation than the eventual reality. A trend soon emerged in which periods of notable activity were followed by longer periods of lethargy, inactivity, and a general inability to make progress toward its stated goals despite revisions, with the eventual result being a scaling-back of the NBA's focus to that of the coordination of basin projects and fundraising for the organization (Medinilla, 2017; Sergejeff & Medinilla, 2021).
The 1990s were marked in particular by limited progress being made with a lack of political support for water cooperation and regional cooperation in general as various economic, social, and political problems surfaced within multiple states in West Africa; this state of affairs was compounded by a continuous vocal opposition by Nigeria against any upstream dam developments (Medinilla, 2017). This opposition by the regional hegemon, in conjunction with a recurring trend of member states not honoring their financial commitments, had resulted in a loss of credibility among development partners and member states, with the NBA eventually becoming effectively paralyzed due to an inability to pay salaries for a time (Medinilla, 2017; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017).
This loss of credibility ultimately resulted in calls for renewal in the early 2000s by member states, intending to increase cooperation through a shared vision and regain momentum in the development of major construction projects within the upstream sections of the Niger River (Sergejeff & Medinilla, 2021). After multiple conferences and high-level meetings, the Water Charter for the Niger Basin was adopted in 2008, serving as the new legal and regulatory framework for the NBA. The Water Charter and its later annexes assisted in the development and adoption of the Operational Plan, in which no less than 351 infrastructure, development, and investment projects were compiled from all member states, and it was envisioned to begin initial operation during the 2016–2024 period (Seidou et al., 2021; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017).
Of the more than two million km2 area that the Niger River Basin covers, only an estimated 1.5 million km2 actively contributes surface or groundwater, with the majority of this surface area, or an estimated 76%, falling within the three states Mali, Niger, and Nigeria (Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017). Therefore the majority of states within the basin, and by extension, the majority of the member states within the NBA, have only marginal access or contribution to its waters; while states such as Algeria and Mauritania are “hydrologically inactive,” with no known water resources contributing to the basin and thus are not members of the NBA (Medinilla, 2017).
Exchange of data and technical projects
Presently, one of the key successes of the NBA was its ability to confidently build and maintain itself as a reliable knowledge and information broker within the Niger River Basin (Medinilla, 2017). Through a series of multifaceted studies and detailed modeling of hydrological and economic conditions, the NBA and its secretariat have positioned itself as both a formal and informal technical and support partner for member states, assisting with the channeling of much-needed funding toward water resource management, climate financing, and making sense of the available data on the Niger River Basin (Medinilla, 2017). This success as a knowledge broker has already had large-scale implications. Its contributions are noteworthy in ending Nigeria's decades-long opposition to upstream infrastructure projects in Niger, Mali, and Guinea (Medinilla, 2018).
Another success of the NBA was the adoption and implementation of the Sustainable Development Action Plan, which sees it involved in the management and rehabilitation of several hydroelectric and agricultural dams built along the river (Niger Basin Authority, 2019; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017). Additionally, it provides for the planning and priority-setting of new development opportunities and dam-building projects under consideration, either individually or jointly between multiple member states, all of which must be brought before the NBA for study, comment, and final approval by all fellow member states (Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017).
Institutional functioning, political commitment, and communication mechanism
The NBA's institutional functioning is based on a four-level structure of authority. The first and highest level is that of the Summit of Heads of State and Government, which is composed of the heads of state and government (or their appointed representatives) and is tasked with defining the general orientation and policy decisions of the NBA's development agenda. It is required to meet once every two years in an ordinary session and its decisions are binding on all the institutions of the NBA (Medinilla, 2017; Niger Basin Authority, 1987).
The next level of authority is that of the Council of Ministers, which is composed of ministers (or appointed representatives) responsible for water resource-related matters within member states and is tasked with monitoring and reporting the activities of the NBA's Executive Secretariat to the Summit of Heads of State and Government. In addition, it is tasked with preparing the Summit's various sessions, examining all matters and issues submitted to it, and providing recommendations when required. The Council meets once a year for an ordinary session and operates on a consensus basis (Medinilla, 2017; Niger Basin Authority, 1987).
The penultimate level is that of the Technical Committee of Experts. This committee is composed of appointed representatives of all the member states. It has the task of advising the Council of Ministers and the Executive Secretariat on the equitable use of water resources, to development of information tools, consulting on projects and programs planned within the basin, facilitating dialogue, negotiation, and mediation in the event of disputes (Niger Basin Authority, 1987; Medinilla, 2017). The Technical Committee of Experts meets at the request of the Executive Secretariat with the consent of the Council of Ministers (Medinilla, 2017; Niger Basin Authority, 1987).
Lastly, the Executive Secretariat conducts the day-to-day operations of the NBA. The Executive Secretariat is headed by the executive secretary, who is appointed by the Summit of Heads of State and Government upon the recommendation of the Council of Ministers and serves for a period of four years with the possibility of a single renewal and is tasked with the administration of the NBA and all its structures for implementation of policy decisions. Additionally, the executive secretary is responsible for undertaking all works, studies, and proposals contributing to the harmonious development of the NBA and its objectives (Niger Basin Authority, 1987).
Alternative dispute resolution
As has been presented previously, the resolution of disputes and disagreements is a serious matter; if not handled correctly, it can result in years of institutional and developmental paralysis. Because of this unfortunate reality, the members of states of the NBA have ensured that there are clearly defined processes for handling disputes between two or more member states and have dedicated two separate chapters: Chapter 9 in the Niger Basin Water Charter, and Chapter 20 of its Appendix No 1, directly to the process of settling disputes (Niger Basin Authority, 2011).
The agreed-upon process begins with direct negotiations between the disputing parties, with agreeable concessions being considered in combination with active mediation, or pressure, from other member states and regional organizations (Medinilla, 2017). In the event that this is not enough to resolve the dispute, the parties will approach the NBA's Permanent Technical Committee, where the dispute will go through rounds of mediation and conciliation procedures in the hopes of finding an agreeable settlement. If these procedures fail to find an agreeable solution and the Executive Secretariat determines it necessary, the Permanent Technical Committee will submit a proposed settlement to the Council of Ministers and the Summit of the Heads of State and Government for consideration within six months of the submission. If, by this point, the dispute is still not resolved, the parties are to present their cases before the Conciliation Commission of the AU before finally approaching the International Court of Justice for an ultimate decision (Niger Basin Authority, 2011).
Water infrastructure and floods, droughts, and ecosystem protection
Within the Niger River Basin are 27 major dams and over five thousand small dams that utilize the waters of the Niger River and its tributaries for hydropower, irrigation schemes, and drinking water reservoirs (Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017). These current dams are already having an impact on the waters, natural habitats, and agricultural production along the length of the Niger River and, by extension, the basins as a whole, with current water withdrawals in the dry season having a notable effect on the wetlands of central Mali and southern Nigeria, while hydroelectric energy production at the Kainji Dam in Nigeria is frequently reduced due to less-than-optimal water levels (Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017).
But despite these challenges, a further three large multipurpose dam projects are under consideration or at various early construction stages. The most notable are the Fomi dam along the border between Guinea and Mali, the Taoussa dam in the Inner Delta section of the Niger River within Mali, and the Kandadji dam in Niger (Medinilla, 2017).
These projects highlight some of the complex interconnected, and difficult trade-offs that basin states often have to make within the Niger River Basin to balance social, political, and economic uncertainties against the often conflicting needs for expanded agricultural production, increasing electricity generation, environmental protection and maintaining long-term access to clean potable water (Medinilla, 2017; Sergejeff & Medinilla, 2021; Talbi et al., 2014) To guard against illogically destructive development projects and the growing intensity of both periods of drought and flooding, the NBA and its member states have developed multiple policies for environmental protection and management.
Specifically, both the original and revised conventions establishing the NBA in 1980 and 1987 state clearly that environmental protection is a responsibility of all member states and that cooperation through the NBA is needed to address periods of flooding and drought (Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017; Niger Basin Authority, 1987). These initial responsibilities were expanded upon in the first appendix to the Niger Basin Water Charter, solely dealing with the protection of the environment and dedicating an entire chapter, “Chapter 7: Combating desertification, deforestation, and drought,” to the efforts of mitigating the effects of drought within the basin (Niger Basin Authority, 2011).
Later in 2019, Annex No.2, expanding on “Water Regulations for the coordinated management of the structuring dams of the Niger,” went further by providing the legal basis for emergency management of dams within the Niger River Basin in the event of severe water shortages, risks of exceptional floods or structural bursting that might negatively affect other member states (Niger Basin Authority, 2019). Article 11 of Annex No.2 specifically states that in the event of drought or flooding, all member states will take the necessary steps to limit water withdrawals and safely spread flood water to minimize their potential impacts (Niger Basin Authority, 2019).
Niger River Basin analysis
The Niger River Basin achieved a score of 100 in the WCQ and was one of only eight basins around the world to reach this “perfect score” (Strategic Foresight Group, 2017). But upon closer examination, though the NBA and the Niger River Basin as a whole may contain elements that satisfy all the WCQ parameters, their real-world application and effects are at best an aspiration to better water cooperation, while at worst little more than a “signaling” to the international community that improves confidence and access to investment/funding opportunities (Medinilla, 2017; Medinilla, 2018; Sergejeff & Medinilla, 2021).
It must be understood that river basin organizations, such as the NBA, are, in essence, intergovernmental institutions that are completely subject to the political will of their member states and how much or little significance their individual political, social, and economic dynamics and position allows (Sergejeff & Medinilla, 2021). For example, in geographical terms, the majority of the Niger River falls within the states of Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, leading to these states having a greater level of interest in its water resources and development (Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017). While their fellow riparian and member states of Burkina Faso, Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Chad, and Cameroon often only have minimal to peripheral interest in the basin and its management due to their limited access and contribution to the wider basin (Medinilla, 2017).
This inherent geographical imbalance of interest is also reflected in the financial contributions that member states are obliged to make to the NBA. Initially, the operating costs of the NBA were to be shared equitably among all member states (Niger Basin Authority, 1987), but due to repeated instances of states failing to provide the necessary financial dues to the NBA, a new financing structure was developed (Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017; Medinilla, 2017). This new budgetary formula saw Mali, Niger, and Nigeria contribute substantially more, often as much as 30% in the case of Nigeria, due to them being the primary beneficiaries of the Niger River; while poorer and more marginal states such as Chad are expected to contribute only 1% of the overall budget (Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017).
Thus, it was easy in the past for individual riparian states, when ability and capacity allowed, to develop water resources and infrastructure projects either unilaterally or, if need be, bilaterally, with little involvement from the wider basin or the NBA (Medinilla, 2017; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017). Only within the last few decades, with the need for riparian consent, has the NBA's knowledge broker capacity been empowered to include authority over environmental and social impact assessments at the regional level (Medinilla, 2017). But overall control of basin projects and investments is still held at the national level, with projects seeking NBA accreditation for the improved confidence and investment potential it encourages; however, it ultimately leaves member states highly reluctant to empower the NBA further or to subordinate their national projects to a wider coordinated basin development plan (Medinilla, 2017).
A clear example of this state of affairs is the historical and current actions of the regional hegemon, Nigeria. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Nigeria developed its water infrastructure independently of the NBA and its fellow riparian states, resulting in a traditionally defensive position in opposition to upstream investments and projects that could affect the level of water flow required to be productive (Medinilla, 2017). But recent direct negotiations between Nigeria, Niger, and Mali have seen concessions made that envisage the future reduced development of dam projects such as the Kandadji in Niger and Fomi along the Mali-Guinea border becoming more palatable, but with little involvement of the NBA (Medinilla, 2017; Solomon & Mahlakeng, 2017).
Unfortunately, the reality is that the Niger River Basin and its riparian states are situated within a fragile and underdeveloped region of the world, with threats to food security, civil unrest, terrorism, and poverty being ever-present concerns that often override the aspiration and need for better water cooperation (World Bank, 2015). Thus, the Niger River Basin is a clear example of why any analysis of water cooperation must contain a clear and detailed context of the dynamics found within a transboundary river basin. Reducing water cooperation to a simple score, no matter how detailed, allows river basins like the Niger and its organization, the NBA, to achieve high or even “perfect scores” in theory. However, they fall short of exercising effective water cooperation within the day-to-day practice.
The Lake Chad River Basin
Basin background
Lake Chad sits at the heart of both the arid Sahel region that cuts across the African continent, as well as a river basin that covers an estimated area of 2,596,900 km2 and draws on the waters from Algeria, Cameroon, Libya, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic (CAR), Sudan and Chad (Galeazzi et al., 2017; World Meteorological Organization, 2015). The Basin has one of the fastest-growing populations in the world, with current estimates stating that 50 million people of more than 70 separate, predominantly rural ethnic groups call it home, and this population is expected to more than double to an estimated 129 million people, by 2050 (Abu & Ahmed, 2021; Okpara et al., 2015). With such dramatic demographic growth expected, the importance of the Lake Chad River Basin as a source of potable water, food security, economic livelihood, and social stability cannot be underestimated and is set only to grow in the future.
But regrettably, the Lake Chad River Basin faces an uncertain future with multiple factors, both human and natural, contributing to the shrinkage of Lake Chad by as much as 90% since the 1960s and threatening its long-term sustainability (Bitrus & Isah, 2021; Ndehedehe et al., 2020). Even though only the worst of this shrinkage has occurred during times of intense drought, with periodic returns of a larger Lake Chad (Magrin, 2016), the effect of these times of decreased water levels has already had an impact. The desert sands of the Sahara encroach on the Sahel more and more every year, impacting the livelihoods of farmers, fishermen, and livestock herders along its banks and wider basin, with an estimated 10.7 million people needing humanitarian relief to survive (Abu & Ahmed, 2021; World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
Additionally, poverty, instability, and chronic underdevelopment hamper any meaningful change across the region and, in particular, the riparian states of the Lake Chad River Basin (Okpara et al., 2015). Of the mostly rural population within the basin, 40% live in poverty conditions, with routine chronic food shortages and water scarcity being an everyday reality with water supplies already as low as 500m3 of water per person per year on average (Bitrus & Isah, 2021; World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
The majority of the water that flows and eventually forms Lake Chad, has their starts atop the mountains of Central Africa and flows North through the Chari River in the CAR and Logone River in Cameroon; both meet at N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, and from there flow into Lake Chad itself (Galeazzi et al., 2017). Across the basin, rainfall contributes as much as 14% of the water that flows into Lake Chad during the rainy season, while the only other noteworthy tributary of the Komadougou-Yobé river system flows from northeast Nigeria and contributes a marginal 3% (Galeazzi et al., 2017; Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2015).
The current phase of Lake Chad is the “Small Lake Chad” variant; it is widely considered the most socio-economically favorable situation in terms of balancing the ecosystem and human activities (Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2015). Small Lake Chad allows for manageable flooding during the rainy season, supporting rain-fed and flood-recession agriculture, fishing activities, and cattle grazing (Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2015; World Meteorological Organization, 2015). But this phase is particularly vulnerable to climatic and human changes in the water level entering Lake Chad, with multiple examples throughout its history attesting to this (Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2015).
Lake Chad River Basin location.
Source: by the author.
Citation: Regions and Cohesion 13, 2; 10.3167/reco.2023.130203
Notable periods of droughts occurred within the Lake Chad River Basin from 1972 to 1975 and again from 1982 to 1985, both of which resulted in the Small Dry Lake Chad phase and saw the lowest water surface level recorded over the past one hundred years within the basin (Okpara et al., 2015). What contributed significantly to these historic low water levels were the changes that human activity made within the basin, with multiple infrastructure and agricultural projects such as large dams, dikes, and irrigation schemes coming online across the Lake Chad River Basin during and between these two drought periods (Asah, 2015; Madgwick et al., 2017). Some notable examples are the Yaguou-Tekele Dike in Chad and the giant Maga Dam in Cameroon, both of which were built along the primary inflows of the Chari and Logone rivers, seeing a combined reduction of 45% of the average water inflow that used to occur from 1950 to1970 (Okpara et al., 2015). Yet another series of dams, around 20, built along the tributary Komadugu-Yobe River in Nigeria has resulted in as little as 1% of the original volume of water reaching Lake Chad (Asah, 2015).
Thus, it is estimated that as much as 50% of the reduction of Lake Chad and the depletion of its waters can be attributed to unsustainable water diversion and use for human activities (Okpara et al., 2015). This state of affairs is well-known to the riparian states of the Lake Chad River Basin.
WCQ—Satisfied parameters
agreement
The creation of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) occurred on May 22, 1964, at Fort Lamy, now N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, and was an agreement initially signed between Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, with subsequent memberships offered and accepted by the CAR and Libya, occurring later in March 1994 and 2008 respectively (Abu & Ahmed, 2021; Bitrus & Isah, 2021). The LCBC is mandated with the promotion and preservation of peace and security, the protection of the basin's ecosystems, and the sustainable use and development of all water and any other transboundary resources within the Lake Chad River Basin (Bitrus & Isah, 2021; Galeazzi et al., 2017).
But despite the optimism and potential of the LCBC, its early years were characterized by inactivity and dysfunction, a reflection of the instability common to some of its member states and the region as a whole (Abu & Ahmed, 2021). In the aftermath of the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, the importance of the Lake Chad River Basin, both in environmental and human terms, was made clear, giving the LCBC the necessary momentum to undertake multiple waves of research and restructuring (Abu & Ahmed, 2021).
The first major success of these restructuring efforts was the development and implementation of the Strategic Action Plan in the late 1990s with the goal of the “Sustainable Development of the Lake Chad Basin” (World Meteorological Organization, 2015). Later in 2000, the Lake Chad Water Vision 2025 was adopted and committed the riparian states to the rehabilitation, preservation, and protection of the Lake Chad River Basin as a “common heritage” vital for ecosystem sustainability, economic security, and poverty reduction (Abu & Ahmed, 2021; World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
In April 2012, the Lake Chad Water Charter was adopted by the LCBC members (Galeazzi et al., 2017; Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2011). The Water Charter was a necessary update to the Fort Lamy Agreement of 1964 and reaffirmed the need for LCBC to promote and coordinate IWRM at the basin level and to find a workable balance between environmental protection and human use; it entered into force in 2017 (Galeazzi et al., 2017; World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
technical projects
The LCBC, though limited by budgetary constraints and a lack of funding (Abu & Ahmed, 2021), does carry out technical projects within the basin, usually focused on studies, investigations, and reports using the limited data that it has access to (World Meteorological Organization, 2015). It is noteworthy that these studies have resulted in donor support for more concrete actions to be taken by the LCBC and its investment plans (World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
institutional functioning, political commitment, and communication mechanism
The LCBC's institutional functioning is based on a three-level structure of authority. The highest level of authority is that of the Summit of Heads of State, which is the commission's supreme decision-making and orientation body and is tasked with designing the strategic policies and guidelines of the LCBC. The Summit is intended to meet once every two years in an ordinary assembly (World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
The second level of authority in the LCBC is that of the Council of Ministers, which is made up of the member states’ appointed representatives dealing with water resources and basin-related issues and is the supervisory, monitoring, and controlling body of the commission that approves the commission's budget and annual action program. The Council is tasked with harmonizing water resource management between member states, preparing technical documents for submission to the Summit of Heads of State, and facilitating policy implementation by the Executive Secretariat; it meets once every year in an ordinary session (World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
Finally, the executive body of the LCBC is the Executive Secretariat based in N'Djamena, Chad, and is headed by the executive secretary. The main tasks of the Executive Secretariat are to maintain communication channels between member states, assemble and disseminate data on member states’ water resource projects, conduct regular baseline studies of the Lake Chad River Basin, and finally plan, coordinate and carry out regional projects (World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
The LCBC is assisted and advised by several subsidiary institutional bodies. These bodies are the Technical Committee; the Regional Parliamentary Committee; the Water Resources Advisory Committee; the Environment, Science and Planning Advisory Committee; the National Agencies of the LCBC, and the Lake Chad Basin Forum of Sustainable Development Partners (Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2011).
The operational budget is ideally supposed to draw on the contributions of its member states, following a formula in which: Nigeria provides 40%; Cameroon 20%; Libya 18%; Chad 11%; Niger 7%; and CAR 4% annually (Galeazzi et al., 2017; World Meteorological Organization, 2015). But due to instability, internal political dynamics, and economic crisis, member states have often been slow to provide these contributions (Galeazzi et al., 2017), resulting in the LCBC having to derive some of its operating budgets from outside donors with African Development Bank, European Union, Fonds Français pour l'Environnement Mondial (FFEM), and the Global Environment Facility all being common contributors (Galeazzi et al., 2017; World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
alternative dispute resolution
The Lake Chad River Basin and LCBC have an agreed-upon dispute resolution process, outlined in Chapter 15 of the Lake Chad Water Charter (Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2011).
Member states are obligated to settle all interstate disputes peacefully and seek solutions through direct negotiation. The LCBC takes up dispute mediation and resolution duties only if negotiations fail to provide an agreeable solution (Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2011). If these dispute resolution efforts by the LCBC fail to come to an agreeable solution, then the parties may decide to bring the case before other competent regional bodies for mediation and resolution, and only if these bodies fail as well are the parties to approach the International Court of Justice for final resolution (Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2011).
WCQ—Unsatisfied parameters
riparian state inclusion
The Lake Chad River Basin incorporates pieces of the territory of no less than eight independent states, but only six of these states are members of the LCBC. Cameroon, CAR, Libya, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria are all full members, with both Algeria and Sudan having observer status alongside non-riparian Egypt, the Republic of Congo, and the DRC (Galeazzi et al., 2017; Strategic Foresight Group, 2017). Sudan was formally invited to join the LCBC in 2000 with the condition of ratification by its Parliament, but political tensions within the Darfur region and its impact on neighboring Chad have so far prevented any such actions (Magrin, 2016).
exchange of data
A recurring weakness of the LCBC is the fact that its information-gathering and dissemination capabilities are extremely limited. This has been a problem highlighted by multiple studies, organizations, and conventions; despite it being an agreed mandate and obligation of member states in the Lake Chad Water Charter to resolve (World Meteorological Organization, 2015). This issue has further repercussions, as individual member states also find themselves in a situation where information on the amount of water drawn, its current uses, and future water needs for planning purposes are either irregular, incomplete, not compiled, or simply not conducted at all (World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
water infrastructure and floods, droughts and ecosystem protection
There is no jointly owned or managed infrastructure within the Lake Chad River Basin, while in reality, the LCBC is limited to the coordination and communication of only some of the proposed water projects of its member states; at the same time, it is excluded from other relevant programs and projects within the region that could have an impact on water management (Galeazzi et al., 2017).
Concerning floods, droughts, and ecosystem protection, the LCBC and its member states do have legal policies and frameworks in place, but in practice, they are either non-functioning or poorly implemented (Galeazzi et al., 2017; Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2011). For the LCBC, despite a clear mandate to actively assist in the protection of the environment and biodiversity, with Chapter 4 of the Lake Chad Water Charter obliging its members to do the same, budgetary constraints and limitations of institutional, human, and material resources render it ineffective (Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2011; Galeazzi et al., 2017).
Lake Chad River Basin analysis
The Lake Chad River Basin scored 53.3 in the WCQ, displaying a clear desire for water cooperation (Strategic Foresight Group, 2017). But, considering the fact that the Lake Chad River Basin is situated right next to the “perfect” scoring Niger River Basin, with four of its members, including the regional hegemon Nigeria, also having membership of the NBA, this level of water cooperation is unnecessarily low.
There are various reasons for this unnecessarily low level of water cooperation, and they form a self-reinforcing cycle of marginalization and crisis. At the beginning of this cycle is the unfortunate reality that for almost all the riparian states of the Lake Chad River Basin and members of the LCBC, except for Chad, the basin and Lake Chad itself are of marginal concern; an area that is far away, remote and of little social, political, or economic influence within the capital cities (Bitrus & Isah, 2021; Magrin, 2016; Ndehedehe et al., 2020). This has resulted in a chronic infrastructure deficit, which further pushes Lake Chad and its wider basin into the periphery as political, social, and economic instability of some of the world's poorest states takes priority (Abu & Ahmed, 2021; Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2015; Magrin, 2016; Okpara et al., 2015).
Thus, when the dynamic nature of the Lake Chad River Basin's climate brings about periods of low rainfall or outright drought, a difficult event is exacerbated into a crisis (Lake Chad Basin Commission, 2015; World Meteorological Organization, 2015; Bitrus & Isah, 2021). These crises see parts of Lake Chad, its tributary rivers, wetlands, swamps, and savannas dry out and become unsuitable for the common livelihoods of the mostly rural population, such as agriculture, herding, and fishing. Exacerbating things further, an already water-scarce region and people now have less access to clean potable water, spurring the mass migration of thousands of people toward areas of already utilized land and water resources (Bitrus & Isah, 2021; World Meteorological Organization, 2015).
These uncoordinated migrations, in combination with over-utilized resources, result in increased competition for necessities such as clean water, fishing, and land; thus, disagreements and conflicts between peoples, communities, and even neighboring states become inevitable (Bitrus & Isah, 2021; Madgwick et al., 2017). A clear example of this occurred between 1980 and 1994 when almost 60,000 Nigerian citizens crossed the border into Cameroon following receding lake waters. Communities on both sides had difficulty adjusting to the new dynamics, and several people lost their lives from the resulting conflict (Bitrus & Isah, 2021; Okpara et al., 2015).
These growing crises and the violence that often accompanies them heightened levels of water scarcity and poverty in many areas, spurring local communities, governments, and even state-level officials to make short-term unilateral decisions to allocate and utilize more water resources (Abu & Ahmed, 2021). This situation was observed in the wake of the 1980s droughts, and as Okpara et al. (2015) state: “Each riparian state made unilateral decisions to construct dams and divert water away from the lake without recourse to existing water agreements and consultations with the Lake Chad Basin Commission.” This state of affairs leads to greater long-term difficulties in managing water resources, scarcity, and poverty alleviation (Madgwick et al., 2017).
With now previously agreed-upon basin and water arrangements being politically difficult to implement in practice, it calls for institutional reform and restructuring of the LCBC to occur. These reforms, ostensibly aimed at encouraging increased water cooperation, coordination, and management, often attempt to “signal” to the international donor community to regain their trust and access to international funding and investment (Galeazzi et al., 2017; Medinilla, 2018). The results often are of a more politically expedient nature, such as when the directorship numbers of the LCBC increased from five to 12, with no actual increase in institutional capacity and a well-known trend for member states to compete over key appointments (Galeazzi et al., 2017). This inherent incapacity and political competition within and over the LCBC has resulted in bloating its mandate into areas outside of its ostensible focus of IWRM and budgetary capacity (Galeazzi et al., 2017).
Thus, with an inability to meet its mandate, the LCBC lacks the credibility needed to gain the support of the Lake Chad population, leading to a lack of political will to see it develop into a more functional institution for basin cooperation (Abu & Ahmed, 2021; Galeazzi et al., 2017). Finally, this results in the LCBC being pushed to the periphery when climate conditions normalize, restarting the cycle that sees the political marginalization of Lake Chad and its wider basin turn into a crisis and a lack of effective water cooperation (Abu & Ahmed, 2021).
Conclusion
This article set out to answer the question: What is the current state of water cooperation within West Africa's major transboundary river basins? From the discussion and analysis presented, the answer is that water cooperation is in a state of unnecessary limitation, despite the well-known desire and growing necessity within West Africa's major transboundary river basins. Three findings from the discussion and analysis support this answer, all of which are presented in Table 2.
Summary table of West Africa's major transboundary river basins
| West Africa's Major Transboundary River Basins Summary Table | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WCQ Parameters | Niger River Basin WCQ 2017 Score | Niger River Basin Analysis highlights Surface Area km2: 2,132,200 |
Lake Chad River Basin WCQ 2017 Score | Lake Chad River Basin Analysis highlights Surface Area in km2: 2,596,900 |
|
| Agreement | 1/1 | Highly developed, limited implementation | 1/1 | Developed, limited implementation | |
| Communication Mechanism | 1/1 | Functional and structured | 1/1 | Functional and structured | |
| Technical Projects | 1/1 | Limited to support role | 1/1 | Highly limited research projects | |
| Exchange of Data | 1/1 | Active knowledge broker | 0/1 | Highly limited and infrequent | |
| Alternative Dispute Resolution | 3/3 | Structured / untested | 3/3 | Structured/untested | |
| Floods, Droughts, and Ecosystem Protection | 3/3 | Accepted basin policies/conditional to riparian state policies | 0/3 | Accepted basin policies, but ineffective and subject to riparian state policies | |
| Water Infrastructure | 5/5 | Widespread/reported but uncoordinated | 0/5 | Limited, unreported and uncoordinated | |
| (Riparian State) Inclusion | 5/5 | Complete | 0/5 | Incomplete, Sudan remains a non-member of LCBC | |
| Political Commitment | 5/5 | Highly conditional riparian commitment | 5/5 | Marginal riparian commitment | |
| Institutional Functioning | 5/5 | Active, but underutilized | 5/5 | Active | |
| Final Score/comment | 100 | Aspiration to improved water cooperation, but limited in practice | 53.33 | Unnecessarily low level of water cooperation results in marginalization | |
| Key Findings | |||||
| Positives | Challenges | ||||
| Water cooperation widely desired at basin level within the West Africa region. | Improved water cooperation often overridden by more immediate social, economic, and political concerns/developments. | ||||
| Regional water policies highly developed and recognized. | Due to weak regional cooperation and coordination, regional policies are underutilized and are thus less effective in meeting collective challenges. | ||||
| Nigeria and Cameroon, key influences for regional water future. | Effects of unilateral actions/developments in Nigeria and Cameroon will be felt by all riparian's in the Niger and Lake Chad River Basins. | ||||
| Both basins are ultimately adaptable to changing conditions. | The natural adaptability of both river basins needs to be supported through data collection, coordination, and cooperation to see its benefits utilized and potentially expanded. | ||||
The first finding is that water cooperation and water resource management, in general, are widely desired within both river basins. The long history of water cooperation between the riparian states of both river basins, with multiple negotiation phases, inactivity, paralysis, and revitalization, support this finding. If the desire for water cooperation was found in the region alone, the repeated periods of inactivity and challenges of maintaining the TBOs would have seen them either dissolved in favor of or integrated into the regional organizations of the Economic Community of West African States or the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD); both of which have wider support and more established funding mechanisms. This is not the case, as focused water cooperation over the waters of the Niger and Lake Chad River Basins is more than just desired but to some degree acknowledged as a necessity, as the consequences of large water infrastructure projects like the Maga Dam in Cameroon or inefficiencies of the Kainji Dam in Nigeria, are felt at the basin and not the regional level, thus requiring a more nuanced and focused cooperation approach.
These examples flow directly into and support the second finding; that Nigeria and Cameroon will be the two most influential riparian states in both river basins, and their actions or inactions will determine whether water cooperation improves or the limitation persists. Starting with Nigeria as the regional hegemon with the largest economy and population, its influence is felt heavily in both TBOs as it remains the main source of budgetary funding. Nigeria is far more active in the NBA than the LCBC, where for decades it opposed the construction of any major water infrastructure along the upstream sections of the Niger River in Mali or Niger, only relenting on this opposition after the revitalized effort of the NBA as a knowledge broker and the scaling down of the proposed dams further upstream.
As for Cameroon's demonstrated ability to build large-scale water infrastructure, such as the Maga Dam, has already contributed to the 45% decrease in water flows toward Lake Chad. How Cameroon develops its water policy will directly affect the water level of Lake Chad, as well as directly influencing its future utilization and management of the Benue River, which is a major tributary of the Niger River within Nigeria and could impact the water level that flows and forms the Niger Delta. Finally, multiple instances throughout this article indicate that despite the unfor tunate socio-political instability of the wider region, the notable sensitivity to changing climate conditions, and the repeated periods of inactivity of both the NBA and LCBC, both river basins are ultimately highly adaptable systems that if supported correctly, can find equilibrium between environmental and human needs even after extreme events. Two clear examples support this finding; the first being that in 1985 the flow of the Niger stopped at Niamey, which meant that for some time, a full third of the Niger River's length had no water other than that provided by smaller marginal streams and the Niger Delta had only the waters of the Benue River maintaining it. Also, Lake Chad has changed repeatedly from its Small, Dry Lake Chad phase, last seen in 1985 with its lowest level in a hundred years, to the Small Lake Chad phase that the local rural population and state infrastructure managers reportedly prefer for efficient utilization.
This cycle of repeated periods of prolonged drought, followed by a gradual return to relatively regular rain patterns, occurred long before human activities exacerbated its worst effects. Improved data collection methods, expanded research, effective management, and, most importantly, increased water cooperation could see the worst of this cycle reduced and mitigated effectively and also see the sustainable long-term utilization of the basins expanded to more people and activities.
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