Lake Chad at the centre of great concern

Since Tuesday expects have been examining the nitty- gritty issues around what will emerge as a binding agreement on the climate next December 11; but a core question with understanding ramifications has been Lake Chad which came up as an important discussion point during the side-summit organized last Tuesday to address specific African problems. The question for discussion at that side event concerned renewable energy, desertification and the financing of projects conceived to resist the threat of climate changed. Incidentally Lake Chad alone encompasses all these problems.

In the past 50 years about 90 percent of all its waters have been dried up, to the extent that what used to be an important source of livelihood for millions of people is today a nightmare creating more and more fear as the years go by. President Paul Biya and his other peers whose countries have the lake as a common heritage came to this event to make a poignant plea to the international community to come to their rescue. For one thing, no other example could the story of the devastation and threat of climate change better than what is happening on Lake Chad with its terrible consequences on the economies of the basin countries as well as the break in social cohesion brought about by growing insecurity as a result of the presence of the Boko Haram insurgency.

Citizens who once thrived on fishing activity on the lake had to make do with some farming activity on the dried up areas but hardly had they settled than the Boko Haram hoodlums hit their fragile homes pushing them to camp out in fragile ecological conditions often far from their initial settlements. In Paris last Monday, President Biya joined his colleagues from Chad, Niger and Nigeria to make a clarion call for immediate intervention to save the lake and consequently improve on the livelihoods of some five million people directly concerned with activity on the lake and the other 40 million who are indirect beneficiaries of the waters of the lake.

At the opening ceremony of the Paris summit last Monday, President Biya had already brought up the issue when he reminded about “this vast expanse of water which is indispensable to the life of the population and biodiversity is gradually drying up.” The efforts of the Heads of State may pay off, after all. Officials of the Lake Chad Basin Commission have been very busy here at the summit to sell a “Lake Chad Development and Climate Resilience Action Plan” whose objective is to save the lake and turn it into a regional rural development. The plan has the support of the CIWA, the French Development Agency and the World Bank.

The plan revolves around seven priority themes ranging from supporting producers and value chains through facilitating transport and trade to environmental preservation to information and participation. There are obviously better days ahead for the region especially as President François Hollande promised accrued aid, not only through support of the action plan proposed by the LCBC, but also stepping assistance in the security area, particularly with the fight against Boko Haram.