Legal, Institutional and Technical Instruments of Rational Management of Water Resources in the Niger Basin

The Niger River with a length of 4,200 km, drains an area of 2, 100,000 km(2) divided among nine states which have created the Niger Basin Authority ( NBA ) : Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d' Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad. In the context of sustainable and agreed development of the Niger Basin, the Member States have strengthened their cooperation on the solidarity and reciprocity for a sustainable, reasonable and equitable use of water resources. To this end, legal, institutional and technical instruments have been implemented: (1) The Water Charter of the Niger Basin Water it comes to effect on July 19, 2010 and determines the rules relating to: (1) the fair and reasonable allocation of water resources between member states on the one hand and the various other uses, in the other hand; (2) the consultation between Member States in the planning of projects likely to have significant adverse effects on water resources;(3)the protection and preservation of water resources, (4)the prevention and resolution of conflicts over the use of water resources. It obliges the concerned States to manage water resources so as to maintain the quantity and quality of these resources to the highest possible level ( control of land degradation and these waters, silting and pollution ). To achieve these aims, the NBA has set up water management institutions which are: (1) the Permanent Technical Committee, responsible for monitoring the rational use of water in the basin; (2) the Regional Consultative Group, in charge to establish consensus in the design and implementation of structural works;(3) the Panel of Experts for advising on the specific technical issues related to structural developments in the basin and(4)the Sub-basin Commissions, responsible for proposing the terms of use of water resources in each sub-watershed basin and to help resolve issues related to water use. (2) Allocation and forecasting models of water resources that allow, among other things:(1) to optimize the management of the resource; (2)analyze the hydraulic impacts of the planned measures; (3)coordinate the management of dams;(4)alerting water actors in case of emergencies and (5)manage the input and output reservoirs of dams.