Niger, exchanges on Lake Chad

The chair and permanent secretary of the Country Water Partnership (CWP) Niger took part in the "National consultation workshop on the BIOPALT project - Biosphere and Lake Chad Heritage", on 12 and 13 February 2017 in Niamey.

Held at the premises of the AGRHYMET Regional Centre, it was organized by UNESCO in collaboration with the Executive Secretariat of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) and the Directorate-General for Water Resources (DGRE), the focal point of the LCBC in Niger.

Faced with the continuing degradation of Lake Chad, UNESCO and LCBC signed a partnership agreement in May 2017 to implement the project: «Apply the model of transboundary biosphere reserves and World Heritage sites to promote peace in the Lake Chad basin through sustainable management of its natural resources".

This project called BIOPALT (French acronym for BIOsphere and Lake Chad Heritage) is a sub-component of the Lake Chad Basin Ecological Systems Resilience Rehabilitation and Enhancement Programme (PRESIBALT), funded by the African Development Bank. It will be implemented over a three-year period in the five LCBC member countries of Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, Central African Republic and Chad.

This BIOPALT consultation workshop is part of a series of information and consultation workshops to be held in each of the five beneficiary countries. It aims to bring together the various national stakeholders and partners involved in the safeguarding of Lake Chad, in order to promote a common understanding of the BIOPALT project, exchange and agree on priority areas for the implementation of activities, create a framework for exchange to agree on the roles and responsibilities of the various actors in particular.