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ABSTRACT
Groundwater is a major source of water supply and supports many ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa. According to Integrated Water Resources Management principles, institutionalizing groundwater management and transboundary aquifer cooperation within lake and river basin organizations has long been on the agenda. Although progress has been made at the institutional and operational levels over the last decade, the capacity of these organizations has not been structurally augmented. While this calls for broad structural changes, a few practical solutions are proposed, such as hiring hydrogeologists in regional institutions, adopting open water data policies, and prioritizing intervention areas in transboundary aquifers.
Acknowledgements
The research for this paper has been supported in part by the Water and Development Partnership Programme (project number 110688) with funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. The SADC-GMI is acknowledged for funding a project, ‘Policy, Legal and Institutional Development For Groundwater Management in SADC Member States’, contributing to this paper.
The authors are grateful to Elie Gerges (IGRAC) for the preparation of Figure 1, and to Elisabeth Lictevout and Feifei Cao (IGRAC) for their insights and comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Sub-Saharan Africa here consists of all African countries and territories with the exception of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia and Western Sahara.
2. OMVS, Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du Fleuve Sénégal; OMVG, Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du Fleuve Gambie.