West Africa

At a regional level West Africa has significant surface water and considerable, if unquantified, reserves of fresh water in very deep aquifers. However, water resource availability varies greatly between and within countries, between seasons, and from one year to the next.¹ West African countries are highly water-interdependent, with 17 countries sharing 25 transboundary river basins.

There is no shortage of policies, laws and institutions regulating water resources in West Africa, and all the countries covered by the GWI (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali Niger and Senegal) have adopted the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management² (IWRM) as the basis on which they will manage their water resources. However, at the national level, there is often an absence of synergy and coordination between the laws and institutions regulating the water and related sectors (land, forests, etc.). Many of the existing consultative bodies created to facilitate a more rational coordination are barely functioning, or are dominated by government officials with little or no representation of local people.

Decentralization and the transfer of authority from the central state to local government for the management of key resources and provision of services, including water, is ongoing in West Africa. This brings both opportunities and challenges. A key issue is that of scale and at what level water resources should be governed. The GWI will work with others to reconcile the need for participation and accountability that comes from more localized management structures with the need for a broader, integrated ecosystem approach.

GWI in West Africa has five projects managed by country-level consortia, which, with the exception of Niger, focus on transboundary sub-basins areas in the Gambia, Volta and Niger River Basins. The sixth project, managed at the regional level by IIED and IUCN, is studying benefit-sharing around dams along the Niger River.

The key objectives of GWI in West Africa are to improve access to water and sanitation for vulnerable populations, create a vibrant water constituency and increase support for vulnerable groups within the IWRM approach.

To provide direct access to water and sanitation, GWI in West Africa has thus far constructed and rehabilitated water and sanitation infrastructure, including 157 latrines, 36 wells and nine boreholes, plus improvements to six market garden sites. The rate of access to safe water is estimated to have increased from 50 percent to 80 percent in project villages in Ghana, and access to sanitation from 6.5 percent to 40 percent. These improvements in infrastructure have been accompanied by skills training, for example in public works management (for elected local government officials) and in latrine construction for local artisans.

At the community level, GWI partners have also done much in establishing and training community-level structures to play lead roles in the management of water and sanitation infrastructure and water resources in general (WATSAN committees, water user groups, etc.). They have also provided training in hygiene and sanitation and community level action planning. The Mali and Niger teams have already seen improvements in hygiene behavior such as use of latrines and hand washing with soap.

Partners have introduced Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) concepts through training for local actors and the development of action planning processes linking community level, commune level, and sub-basin level to identify and analyze problems and plan actions within and across administrative boundaries. Within these forums, partners have highlighted the role and importance of community involvement in IWRM decisions.

In addition, GWI has established strategic partnerships with local governments and water-related agencies and institutions at local, regional and national levels. In Burkina Faso, a project monitoring committee and steering committee brings together nongovernmental organizations, research institutions and government departments. Ghana has joined CONIWAS, a national forum for water sector stakeholders. Niger has contributed to development of the National Hygiene and Sanitation Strategy and Road Map and to the “Blue Book,” which advocates for achieving Niger’s Millennium Development Goals for water. GWI collaborates with the French and German development agencies (AFD, GTZ) and the Water Resources Unit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the next steps of the regional project with the policy objective of ensuring that dam-affected people are genuinely better off after dam construction, not simply compensated for assets lost.

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¹ Many of the regions’ aquifers are of difficult access containing nonrenewable water reserves.
² IWRM uses a watershed as a focal point for bringing together the various water users from both public and private sectors, whose interests in water are multiple, divergent and sometimes competing. The expectation is that participatory, deliberate and well-informed planning and decision making concerning the water resource will lead to equitable and sustainable use.