• Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) has become the latest country to sign on to a UN treaty to improve joint water management across borders. 

• The West African nation is the 53rd Party, and the 10th in Africa, to join the UN Water Convention, officially the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes.

• Over 20 more are in the process of joining, including Sierra Leone, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso and Costa Rica, which are in the final stages of accession. 

• The move further consolidates the strong momentum for water cooperation in Africa, where over 90 per cent of water resources are in 63 basins shared by two or more countries.

Why is it important for Ivory Coast?

• In the context of increasing water scarcity and high demand for water in Africa, Ivory Coast’s accession as the 10th African Party to the 1992 Water Convention is a significant step for the continent.

• Ivory Coast has a population of some 30 million and shares eight transboundary river basins with neighbouring countries, including Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.  

• Meeting the water needs of the country’s population, which is growing by 2.5 per cent annually, brings significant challenges in the face of threats such as urbanisation, and climate change impacts, including drought and flooding.

• At the same time, water quality is deteriorating due to pollution from agricultural, industrial waste, illegal gold panning and untreated wastewater. Water resources are also unevenly distributed across the country, with the north and north-east particularly affected. 

Water Convention

• More than 60 per cent of global freshwater flows across national boundaries, such as in the Congo, Danube, Amazon and Mekong, in the basins of lakes such as Lake Geneva or the Great Lakes, or for over 450 identified transboundary groundwater reserves worldwide.  

• With rising water scarcity worldwide, cross-border water cooperation is considered crucial for regional stability, conflict prevention and sustainable development. 

• Climate change impacts such as drought and flooding, as well as pollution and rising demands on use, are putting increasing stress on water resources, in both developing and developed countries, and are among the major drivers of momentum for cooperation. 

• The Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) was adopted in Helsinki in 1992 and entered into force in 1996.

• The Convention is a unique legally binding instrument promoting the sustainable management of shared water resources, the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the prevention of conflicts, and the promotion of peace and regional integration.

• The Water Convention requires Parties to prevent, control and reduce transboundary impact, use transboundary waters in a reasonable and equitable way and ensure their sustainable management. 

• Parties bordering the same transboundary waters have to cooperate by entering into specific agreements and establishing joint bodies. 

• As a framework agreement, the Convention does not replace bilateral and multilateral agreements for specific basins or aquifers. Instead, it fosters their establishment and implementation, as well as further development.

• The Convention was originally negotiated as a regional framework for the pan-European region. 

• Following an amendment procedure, since March 2016 all UN Member States can accede to it.

• Chad and Senegal became the first African Parties in 2018. Then, Ghana acceded in 2020 and was followed by Guinea-Bissau and Togo in 2021, by Cameroon in 2022, and Nigeria and The Gambia in 2023. 

• Iraq acceded in March 2023 as the first country from the Middle East, Namibia in June 2023 as the first country from Southern Africa and Panama in July 2023 as the first country from Latin America. 

• The Water Convention is a powerful tool to promote and operationalise the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its SDGs.

• It directly supports implementation of target 6.5, which requests all countries to implement integrated water resources management, including through transboundary cooperation, as appropriate.

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