1The high level of activity in the economy and the informal trading networks contrasts strongly with the difficulties of governing Lake Chad. To date, this area has maintained ambivalent relationships with the four riparian countries. By turns (and sometimes simultaneously) a territorial buffer zone, a site of border conflicts, and the subject of major development and regional cooperation projects, the Lake reflects the occasionally tumultuous histories of the riparian countries and the ambitions and problems of regional “top-down” construction (performed by modern institutions). The role of the LCBC illustrates these challenges. Oscillating between technical roles of managing shared environmental resources and broader development or regional security missions, the LCBC must strengthen its position as the interface between member state policies, local aspirations of the residents of the Lake and its basin, and the planetary challenges reflected in the waters of Lake Chad.

Lake Chad and the riparian countries: an intermittent interest

2Though Lake Chad has long-standing and pronounced worldwide visibility—it fascinated Arab geographers and more recent European explorers, and remains a major global preoccupation—the relationship between the Lake and the riparian countries is complicated; their aversion to the uncontrollable environment alternates with a keen interest in the potential of its resources.

3Located at the geometrical centre of the pre-colonial Kanem-Bornu Empire, the majority of the Lake remained uncontrolled; its southern shores were uninhabited until the beginning of the 20th century because they were deemed too unsafe. During the period of colonial conquest, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Lake was a major prize in the competition between European powers as a result of its perceived strategic dimension. Later, the interest dwindled when it was discovered to have practically no real strategic value. The colonial powers simply drew borders on the Lake that were designed to share areas of influence, while avoiding a technically challenging process of boundary demarcation. During the era of independence, the four riparian countries had varying levels of investment in the Lake. For Cameroon and Niger, it represented an extreme periphery, located more than 1,000 km from the national capitals. As a result, it was left out of national development projects for a long time. For Chad and Nigeria, it was considered an important place for pioneering at the national or regional level. However, political crises and setbacks in large projects (see I-3, as well as III-1 and IV-2), set against a backdrop of structural adjustment, brought investments to a standstill (1980-2000).

4The 1980s constituted a crisis period that paradoxically prompted the countries around the Lake to cooperate (see IV-4). Tensions in the Lake region increased as a result of drought, intensifying migratory flows, sovereignty conflicts over taxes, and the cross-border movement of armed groups (Saïbou Issa, 2010). The establishment of border-marking procedures and the introduction of an initiative of military cooperation on the Lake came about because of clashes between Chadian and Nigerian soldiers in 1983. The first of these measures, introduced relatively quickly between 1987 and 1990 under the auspices of the LCBC, was undermined by the dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria over the Bakassi peninsula, a dispute that Cameroon brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in 1993. As a result of this dispute, the agreement concerning the Lake’s borders was not immediately ratified. The disagreement was not settled until the ICJ ruled in 2002 on all of the points at issue with respect to the Cameroon-Nigeria border, a ruling that resulted in Nigeria’s withdrawal in 2003 from the Cameroonian part of the Darak Lakeshore, which it had occupied since 1987.

5During the 1980s, under the auspices of the LCBC, the riparian countries also created the early beginnings of a joint security force, in the form of a mixed international patrol (Patmint). This patrol aimed to combat the illegal activities common to this amphibian area, which is located at the fringes of national territorial control. From 1990 to 2000, this experiment was expanded through a mixed multinational Security Force for the Lake Chad basin, though the force’s operationalisation foundered as a result of delays on the part of the countries. However, in recent years (2008-2013), there have been signs of deepening cooperation with respect to security, especially around Lake Chad. This comes after the instability in the Sahara during the 2000s—a result of intensified trafficking (drugs, migrants, and arms)—was made worse by the Libyan crisis in 2011 and its extension into Mali in 2012-2013. In that country, against a background of political chaos, separatist and Islamist groups took control of half of the country’s territory. The Boko Haram insurrection threw the entire Borno state (including the shores of the Lake) into turmoil. Similarly, the military engagements of Chad and Niger in Mali in 2013 made these countries potential targets for transnational armed groups who see the heavily travelled and poorly controlled Lake as a potential rear-operating base.

6Yet in recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Lake Chad, within the framework of the renewed developmental ambitions of the Lakeside countries. Because part of its Lake territory was occupied by Nigeria from 1987 to 2003, Cameroon is now thinking of development strategy in terms of territorial control. In Niger, the oil drilling in the Agadem basin means that the hinterland of Lake Chad and the far eastern part of Niger now occupy a central position in national strategies. In Chad, oil revenues became the engine for new public action initiatives for development after peace was restored in 2009. Lake Chad has been identified as an important issue because of its perceived economic and demographic potential, its location (about 100 km from the capital), and its international aura. In Nigeria, the outlook (2009-2013) seems less favourable; the central government is focusing its attention on Borno due to the Boko Haram movement’s uprising. In the short term, insecurity is a significant limitation. Beyond the politico-military management of the crisis, development efforts for one of the most disadvantaged regions are absolutely necessary. The potential of the natural resources is concentrated at the Lake.

7Consequently, a rapid diagnosis of the development situation, measured according to the classic indicators of access to equipment and public services (education, health, water, energy, roads, etc.), would rank the overall Lake region in the bottom half of rural regions in the four riparian countries. This position does not allow the region to put its productive potential to good use and prevents the Lake from acting as the engine of regional development it has the potential to be. Beyond these all-too-common problems—basic education and sanitary services that struggle even more to meet the requirements of international standards because they have to keep up with rapidly expanding population growth—Lake Chad’s residents are confronted with special problems that national public services are unable to manage; the variability of the environment and the mobility of populations (especially livestock farmers and fishermen) have significant implications for access to basic services, particularly education. The Lake environment also brings with it sanitary problems specific to marshlands: the area suffers from particularly high rates of malaria and water-borne diseases, the latter being linked to the mediocre quality of water drawn from the Lake or the water table. Meanwhile, artesian groundwater is underutilised. Furthermore, mobility and available resources—the money circulating in the fishing sector sometimes incites gold-rush mentalities—encourage the spread of sexually transmitted infections and AIDS. Although the Lake is almost entirely covered by mobile telephone networks, it is still not connected to national electricity networks, which inhibits improvements in processing fish, agricultural, or pastoral products. Accessibility is still very uneven (Figure 9). The Lake is connected to the two regional metropolises, N’Djamena and Maiduguri, by two paved roads that are 120 and 200 km long, respectively. However, many areas are still difficult to access and the distance to central areas is compounded by poor road links; this is true in the Bol region and on the Cameroonian and Nigerien shores. Additionally, the transport links for moving around the Lake are generally poor due to sandy terrain (to the north of the Lake, but also between Massakory and the Yobe River delta), difficult-to-maintain dirt roads that are impacted by variations in water levels, or a lack of upkeep for existing roads (Nigeria).

8In recent years, major efforts have been made throughout the region to provide public infrastructure, with the construction of schools, health centres, and territorial government buildings. Examples of this can be seen in all of the affected countries, but it is particularly evident in Niger and Chad, which had been the furthest behind in this respect. As in other areas, it is critical that the human resources needed to make these infrastructures function be deployed in large enough numbers and with the necessary skills. The Lake’s special characteristics make it a good candidate for implementing experimental methods that are adapted to the high mobility and the cross-border nature of the location. This requires that the planning strategies of the different countries be harmonised. Ensuring the consistency of these programmes will make it possible to better pool infrastructures located in the cross-border urban centres and to optimise the Lake’s economic functionality (movements of herds and fishermen, property zoning, deferred grazing areas, etc.).

9If the projects currently in progress are completed, it should soon be possible to connect Diffa to N’guigmi in Niger and then to Bol, Massakory, and N’Djamena in Chad with paved roads. The opening up of the northern part of the Lake (the northern basin and the northern shores of the southern basin) is essential for its development. As with the other areas around the Lake, it will fulfil this role only if the measures for improving access are not limited to major paved routes and take into account the accessibility needs of the most productive areas—which require versatile but regular mechanisms for dirt road upkeep and mobile piers that are suited to the variability of the area.

Regional construction and the LCBC position

10The history of the LCBC partly reflects that of the Lake Chad riparian countries, in that it is marked by the juxtaposition of constraints both political (internal conflicts and instability) and financial (dependence on foreign donors), as well as by a desire to work with its neighbours, a quality that enables advances in cooperation in the basin. The LCBC, founded in 1964, is one of the oldest regional institutions in Africa. The organisation represents the desire on the part of the four founding riparian countries of Lake Chad (Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, and Chad) to cooperate when it comes to managing their shared resources.

11The difficulties experienced by the LCBC stem from its position and funding. Since its founding, the institution has oscillated between a relatively restricted technical conception of its role—promoting the management of shared water (and environmental) resources at the basin level—and a more wide-ranging vision that aims to coordinate regional development policies. The spirit of the founding Fort Lamy treaty could even be interpreted as intending to create a tool for peaceful coexistence encompassing collective security functions. Though the choice to refocus the LCBC’s role on its central environmental management functions is often brought up as a condition of its institutional consolidation, it is through security issues that the organisation has made some of its most significant advances. Likewise, although the LCBC is not empowered to centralise operational intelligence, it is in a good position to act as a location for assembling and mobilising information about conflicts over resources.

12The LCBC has been paralysed on a regular basis by late payments from one or several of its Member States. Funding from international donors has enabled the organisation to continue operating on a nearly permanent basis, to reorganise itself several times, and to move forward with implementing projects. Along with the problems intrinsic to any international entity (the need for consensus between four, then six member states after the countries at the periphery of the basin joined: the CAR in 1994 and Libya in 2001), the LCBC also faces the problems of coordinating a large number of projects financed by around twenty more or less regular partners. Thus, securing and simplifying funding mechanisms for the LCBC will be a major challenge for the organisation in the coming years.

13It is through mobilising knowledge about environmental resources and building a forward-looking vision for development policies that the LCBC will improve its transparency and credibility in the eyes of national policy-makers and member state populations. In view of this, effective and sustainable management of natural resources must help meet current and future dietary and employment needs in the Lake Chad basin (see chapter on prospective conclusion). This will require the LCBC to strengthen its role in order to provide better coordination both vertically (from local stakeholders to national laws to international rules) and horizontally (defining upstream/downstream and neighbour relationships that are peaceful, more coordinated, and unified).

14The implementation of the Water Charter should contribute to achieving this goal. This tool is designed to be scalable and to implement all aspects of the principles of the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) programme in order to promote sustainable development by clarifying and refining the guidelines for regional environmental management (LCBC, 2012b). Its operationalisation assumes both a thorough technical collaboration between experts from the different countries and a process of social and political mobilisation, which includes perfecting the participation process. This will be a major challenge for the LCBC in the coming years.

15In addition, the geography of the Chad basin has its ambivalences: situated in a pivotal position between West Africa and Central Africa, some of the LCBC member states are more attached to the first area and others to the second area. In some respects, superposing regional constructions of different scales has created an inextricable institutional imbroglio (IV-2). At the same time, for certain issues coming under its remit, the LCBC could facilitate dialogue between these geographical areas, supporting regulatory standardisation and the implementation of satisfactory cross-border practices regarding issues such as the mobility of people and livestock, animal health, the quality of agro-halieutic-pastoral products being traded, etc.

16Another development is the fact that the Lake Chad basin has become an oil producer. The first fields, exploited in Chad to the south of Doba, are certainly far from the Lake. Two more recent projects have come closer, implemented by the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) in Chad (2009-2011)—the Ronier project wells are 300km from the Lake, but the pipeline crosses the Chari and ends at a refinery located in Djermaya, on the banks of the Chari 80km from the Lake—and in Niger (2010-2012), with the wells of the Agadem block located in the Lake’s remote hinterland. In Chad, the CNPC acquired EnCana’s licences. From 2004-2006 EnCana conducted a drilling campaign subsequent to the explorations conducted in Kanem in the 1970s. A well drilled in Baga Sola proved to be dry. Explorations were also conducted several years ago in Nigeria’s Borno state by the Nigerian National Oil Company (NNOC). The installation of a pipeline to export oil from southern Chad to the Cameroon coast (Kribi) is also connected to the spread of this “black gold rush” mentality in the Chad basin: underutilised since the decline in production of the Doba oil field (2008), the pipeline promises to overcome isolation at a reasonable cost, with the connection of secondary pipelines.

17This oil potential is therefore not without implications for the Lake, which is an invaluable ecosystem whose economic potential lies largely in the preservation of its environmental capital. Given the Lake’s endorheic nature (closed drainage basin) and marsh environment, hydrocarbon pollution could have catastrophic consequences on its fauna and flora, and therefore on all of the activities of the populations; depending on the location of the pollution, it could be very difficult and costly to stop and repair. For these reasons, the LCBC should obtain a special status for the Lake itself and its immediate surroundings as an area of high environmental value, thereby excluding it from oil-block zoning, so that any oil activity, even exploration, would be banned. It should also include information on oil activity within the entirety of the basin in its environmental database in order to promote the collaborative and peaceful management of cross-border resources and environmental regulation.

Concerning the water transfer project from the Ubangi River to Lake Chad

18Last but not least, the proposed project to transfer water from the Ubangi River to Lake Chad has been receiving considerable attention for the past several years. It has the strengths and weaknesses common to all very large projects: while it constitutes a potential vector for social and political mobilisation to address the challenges of managing the basin’s natural resources, it also tends to occupy its entire horizon, to the point that it overshadows thinking regarding alternative possibilities.

19The idea of an inter-basin transfer came about within the context of a drought, which saw the resurfacing of the longstanding fear (Tilho, 1928) that Lake Chad might disappear. The LCBC Heads of State became involved in the project in the 1990s. As evidence of their interest in this project, they also commissioned a feasibility study (2009-2011), at their own expense. The study was conclusive with regard to the technical feasibility and relevance of the inflow that would be produced by transferring 3.4 km³ from the Ubangi River to the Lake, an alternative option being to recalibrate around 1,350 km of the Chari. The proposed solution includes a gravity transfer from the Kotto River, the regulation of navigation on the Ubangi River, and, at a remote site, the equipping of a dam in Palambo for hydropower generation (20MW). Combined with improvement to the Chari’s hydraulicity and measures to keep sediment from filling Lake Chad, the transfer is expected to increase Lake’s water level by 0.5 to 1m. The transfer would not substantially alter the Chari River flow rate in its downstream section but would likely avoid a Dry Little Chad state—that is, a northern basin with no water flowing to it—in a certain number of climate and water-usage scenarios (see chapter on prospective conclusion). The initial investment cost is estimated at approximately 7 billion dollars (Cima International, 2011).

20Prior to the feasibility study conducted by CIMA (2011), the significant lack of precision of certain arguments in favour of the inter-basin transfer project presented a difficult problem. Owing to a lack of accurate information, various players (both institutional and political) developed arguments over the course of several years that were extensively relayed by the media. These arguments were founded on erroneous diagnoses (“Lake Chad is disappearing and urgent intervention is needed”, see I-1) and on the expected effects of the transfer, which referred to successive versions of the project that were never specified (see IV-2). According to these discourses, the transfer would have allowed navigation and regional trade between the forests of Central Africa and the Lake Chad basin, along with the restoration of the Medium Chad state, the development of extensive irrigated farming on the banks of Lake Chad, and more. Yet all of this had only been presented as possible in a previous transfer projects of 40 km³ or more, the hypothesis for which was never seriously considered, being too costly and laden with various environmental impacts. This has resulted in a certain tension between strategic planning documents produced by the LCBC (such as the cross-border diagnostic analysis and the strategic action plan, see Bdliya and Bloxom, 2012; LCBC, 2008 and 2012a), funded by donors (European Union, GEF, etc.), which rarely, if at all, bring up the possibility of a water transfer and the stances frequently taken by the political bodies of the LCBC (Council of Ministers and Heads of State) who place it at the forefront of their priorities. The lack of financing or a sufficiently clear discussion of its purpose has meant that this project has proved more of a hindrance to the LCBC than a stimulus.

21Discussions need to come out of this impasse. In this regard, the technical feasibility study was a necessary step. At present, its results need to be more widely circulated in order to encourage wider reflection based on its insights. Forecasting (see V: “The Future of Lake Chad: A Prospective Conclusion”) shows that there is good reason to look into ways of securing the water supply to Lake Chad and its ecosystem with its high economic potential. In a basin whose population is expected to double within 25 years and become urbanised, producing more food and employing a large youth population represent critical challenges that Lake Chad can contribute to addressing. The relatively wet climate conditions in recent years (Little Chad state with no transition to Dry Little Chad from 1991-2013) do not threaten the existence of the Lake in the short term. The likely increase in withdrawals in the upper basin in the coming years or decades could however represent a threat. Conducting a regional discussion involving policy makers, civil-society organisations, and residents of the Lake’s shores and coastal plains—with a focus on the prospective challenges of methods of using the basin’s water resources—would help situate discussion regarding the transfer within a broader examination of the different options for responding to demographic pressure on resources. The option of generalising irrigation on a large scale, without restrictions, would justify an inter-basin transfer, but at the risk of leaving Lake Chad to the same fate as the Aral Sea. There are other options worth considering, however, such as the possibility of increasing water productivity or developing more economical and innovative methods to mobilise and use water across the entire basin. In any case, the LCBC has everything to gain through strengthening its legitimacy by using accurate information to inform a public discussion that would include local residents, local officials, and civil society, in accordance with the orientation of the LCBC’s mission and the IWRM.

Figure 10. The proposed outline of the transfer.

Source: CIMA, CBLT 2011.