13
AFRICA
The News N° 24
Information: Fax: +33 4 93 65 44 02 - E-mail:
FRom one conTinenT To anoTHeR
The ”conventional” Lake Chad Basin (i.e. hy-
drologically active) covering 967,000 km
2
is under the jurisdiction of
the Lake Chad
Basin Commission (LCBC),
which gathers
six countries (Cameroon, Central African Re-
public, Libya, Niger, Nigeria and Chad).
The main challenge for LCBC is to contri-
bute to improving the quality of life of
people in the basin, which passes,
among other things, by controlling the
drying out of the lake
and its tributaries.
It is necessary to ensure a
sound use of the basin’s
water resources, coordi-
nate regional efforts in
natural resources mana-
gement and settle dis-
putes relating to the use
of these resources.
LCBC, established in 1964, initiated an institu-
tional reform in 2008. In this context, the
Conference of Heads of State and Government
adopted on 30 April 2012
the Water Char-
ter of Lake Chad Basin.
Various projects are implemented by LCBC, in-
cluding
the ”Lake Chad Conservation Pro-
ject - Contribution to the Development
Strategy for the Lake”, funded by the
French Global Environment Facility
(FFEM).
This project which started in 2012 is planned
for a 3-year period and has three components
entrusted, among others, to
the Research
Institute for Development
(components 1
and 2) and
the International Office for
Water
(component 3):
➊
Component 1:
Summary of knowledge
and definition of management constraints;
➋
Component 2:
Reliability of the hydrolo-
gical model;
➌
Component 3:
Support for the entry into
force of the Water Charter and strengthe-
ning relations with other African basin
organizations.
Component 3 should allow:
l
The implementation of the Water Charter
through its ratification by all the Member
States and preparation of appendices;
l
The signing of the United Nations Conven-
tion of 21 May 1997 on the Law on the
use of international watercourses for pur-
poses other than navigation;
l
The exchange of experience with basin
organizations of West and Central Africa.
Three workshops for disseminating the Char-
ter, which gathered parliamentarians, deci-
sion-makers, practitioners and water users,
took place in Ndjamena (January 2013),
Niamey (March 2013), Abuja (May 2013) and
Yaoundé (December 2013).
IOWater
is hel-
ping LCBC in the organization and facilitation
of these workshops, as well as in promoting
the UN Convention of 1997.
These actions should allow strengthening the
legal and institutional framework of LCBC to
ensure better integrated water resources ma-
nagement in the basin.
4
Lake Chad Basin Commission
Conservation and development of Lake Chad
LCBC workshop in Niamey in March 2013
Guinea
Capacity
building
for the executives
of the Water Company
of Guinea (SEG)
As part of the support provided by
the Ile-de-
France Water Syndicate (SEDIF)
to
the
Water Company of Guinea (SEG)
under
decentralized cooperation, the “SEDIF” entrus-
ted
IOWater
with two activities, carried out in
the 2
nd
semester of 2013:
➥
Training of executives
on the management of a water
utility by using a system
of performance indicators
to improve the efficiency
of the service
This 4-day training course strengthened the
proactive management of the company, high-
lighting the evolution of the company's perfor-
mances, the areas of improvement and the
priority investments to be made.
➥
Support for the establishment
of a Geographic Information System
(GIS) to improve patrimony
management
A first workshop was held on the premises of
“SEDIF” in Paris to exchange best practices and
define an action plan for the development of a
GIS for “SEG”.
A GIS expert from
IOWater
then carried out a
mission to support “SEG” in the implementa-
tion of the action plan with the primary objec-
tive of establishing a GIS in the Kindia area.
4
Presentation of the new GIS software
