The prevalence of large, transboundary river basins complicates the task of developing large-scale infrastructure and managing water-related conflicts
More than 60 rivers flow across national boundaries in Africa, and many countries share the same basin. In fact, international river basins cover more than 60 percent of the continent, and virtually all of the region’s rivers cross several borders: the Nile has 10 riparians, the Niger nine, the Senegal four, and the Zambezi eight.
Competing claims for economic and environmental uses of water have been asserted over many of the region’s lakes (for example, lakes Victoria and Tana) and river basins. Yet greater cooperation could easily generate more resources to share. The system-wide yield of water in the Nile could likely be increased by several percentage points a year if cooperation led to water storage upstream and coordinated reservoir operation in the arid plains downstream. To optimize economic productivity and environmental sustainability, rivers are best managed at the basin level. This situation poses major management challenges, however, as noted in the next section.
Africa’s international river basins
