The prevalence of large, transboundary river basins complicates the task of developing large-scale infrastructure and managing water-related conflicts

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.