Building the BRIDGE to transboundary water management

90% of the global population relies on international waters and over 275 lake and river basins cross national borders, yet there is no cooperative management framework for most of the world’s shared waters.

Transboundary water management is important for so many reasons. Clean, safe and dependable water is intrinsic to health, food security and economic opportunities. The costs of failing to manage water are often reflected in poverty, disease, loss of biodiversity, conflict and instability.

Managing water that is shared between and among States is often complex and requires new and innovative approaches to water governance. Effective water diplomacy requires national and local-level politicians and decision makers from both sides to work with scientific and technical experts to reach negotiated agreements on policies, laws and institutions for transboundary water management.

IUCN’s Building River Dialogue and Governance (BRIDGE) program aims to enhance water cooperation and diplomacy among riparian countries and thereby increase the socio-economic, environmental and political benefits derived from water.

BRIDGE builds civil, national and local-level capacities for water diplomacy and management through reform of water governance structures, skills development, dialogue and consensus-building, building and supporting water champions, and demonstrating how water cooperation can be a basis for building broader confidence and trust.

One example: the Lake Chad Basin, considered to be one of the most important agricultural heritage sites in the world, spans seven countries. Over the past fifty years, the surface of Lake Chad has shrunk from 25,000km2 to less than 5,000 km2. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called the situation an “ecological catastrophe”. It was clear that an intervention was necessary.

In April 2012, Heads of State representing Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, Central African Republic and Libya signed the Lake Chad Water Charter. Since then, Niger and Chad have ratified the Charter – but two thirds of the Member States need to ratify the Charter in order for it to enter into force and implementation.

BRIDGE has been supporting the governments of Nigeria and Cameroon to make major advancements towards the ratification of the Lake Chad Water Charter. Through the BRIDGE efforts in the region, both member states have fully adhered to the Charter and others have made commitments to facilitate its ratification and implementation.

"With the new water charter as legal framework to define management in the Lake Chad Basin, it is taking a new direction and every stakeholder has to participate in its management.  Highlighting the fact that only government ministries had hitherto been involved in its running," said Mohammed Bila, representative of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC). "The inclusion of community leaders, local representatives and Civil Society members, would be an opportunity to implement a bottom-to-top approach where everyone’s interest is considered".

Since 2012, BRIDGE has been implemented in 14 transboundary water basins in South America, Mesoamerica, the Mekong region, Southern, West and Central Africa, and the Horn of Africa. 

Water diplomacy is one of the many issues that will be addressed at the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2016, which is taking place this September in Hawaiʻi.