Multi-level stakeholders’ participation in trans-boundary water management:

1. Session on Managing Africa’s Trans-boundary Waters Multi-level stakeholders’ participation in trans-boundary water management: Experiences from the “Project for Improving Water Governance in the Volta River Basin” (PAGEV) By Ousmane S. DIALLO, Regional Coordinator, Water & Wetlands Programme

2. OUTLINE What is PAGEV? Focus on Volta River Basin Multi-level stakeholders’ approach Governance structure Achievements Lessons learned Key Challenges

3. What is PAGEV? PAGEV: to strengthen bilateral cooperation between Burkina Faso and Ghana on shared water resources of the Volta Basin Water and Nature Initiative (WANI): a worldwide initiative of the IUCN that seeks to demonstrate how to mainstream the ecosystem approach into river basin planning and management

4. Focus on the Volta River Basin West Africa : Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, Togo (Ghana and Burkina Faso share ~85% of the basin area) SA: 400,000 km2 ; Pop: 19 millions; increasingly becoming stressed as result of human activities Enormous development challenges : need for trans-boundary coordination and cooperation on the management of the Volta Basin waters

5. The Volta River Basin

6. Multi-levelstakeholders’ approach Key partnersat local, national, trans-boundarylevels: joint management of WR National and trans-boundary fora At Community level NGOs & technical Structures Steering Committee

7. VOLTA BASIN AUTHORITY BENIN TOGO BURKINA FASO GHANA MALI IVORY COAST MMEE MMEE MAHRH MWRWH MMEE MEEF Code of Conduct JTC-IWRM/ PAGEV DGRE WRC Trans-border Guidelines Local Trans-boundary Committee (14) Country Committee BURKINA FASO Representatives of the Communities + Technical Services + Administration +NGOs/Civil Society (31) Country Committee GHANA Representatives of the Communities + Technical Services + Administration +NGOs/Civil Society (30) Nakambé Water Agency White Volta Basin Board Grassroots Communities 4 villages GH (12) Grassroots Communities 4 villages BF (12) Governance structure Multi-stakeholders forums for IWRM at the community, national and trans-boundary levels established to promote cooperation Local and National fora of stakeholders Linked to the transboundary structure

8. Achievements PAGEV supported the organization of the 1st meeting of the VBTC held in Ouagadougou on 14-15 March, 2005; Bilateral Agreement: JTC-IWRM signed by the Ministers of the two countries in December 2005 Protocol establishing the VBA signed in July 2006; Four (4) states among the six riparian countries have ratified the VBA Convention;

9. Code of Conduct for the development & management of the shared waters and basin’s NR drafted by a working group and finalized by the JTC-IWRM in May 2006; Establishment of national and trans-boundary fora and trans-boundarycommittee for the management of WR of the Nakanbe River in April 2008. Achievements (cont’d)

10. Lessonslearned • The MSA: slow, expensive and time consuming; but contributed to establish partnership between ministers, decentralized governmental structures at local levels, NGO’s and communities; • Community-level participation is powerful when outcomes are clearly and directly linked to the improvement of livelihood of participating communities;

11. Lessonslearned (cont’d) • Language barrier can be overcome with the commitment of stakeholders and governments to strong capacity building; • New approach for more sustainability by bringing national structures at the forefront of implementation of the activities and building capacity of water users committee.

12. Key challenges • Levels of decentralization in the countries; • Changes of political leadership at local level; • More integratedinstitutionalframeworkensuringsustainability of actions; • Expansion to new communities (3 in BF and 9 in GH); Scaling-up of achievements in the Oti-sub-basin in Togo; • Development of partnerships with GEF-Volta, Volta-Hycos, MOB, PROGEREF, EU/IWRM-Volta…).

13. Thankyou for your attention