On the back of hydrocarbon discoveries in East Africa's great lakes, Tanzania is seeking international mediation regarding its long-standing border dispute with Malawi over rights to Lake Malawi. Lake Chad's waters, used for farming purposes by Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria, are depleting at worrying speed but with no framework to govern the activities of each state. "The lake has shrunk very significantly over the last three or four decades, to a small fraction of its original size, and this is having an impact on fisheries dependent on Lake Chad," says Zafar Adeel, director at the International Network on Water, Environment and Health, at the United Nations University.
The Nile, however, is one of the most complex cross-border water resources to manage. The basin now covers 11 countries with a combined population of around 300 million people (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and since July 2011, South Sudan). To date there has been no commonly agreed view on how its waters should be shared.
Colonial-era agreements governing the use of the Nile recognised only Egypt and Sudan as users. The latest agreement dated to 1959, allowing Egypt to hold on to its lion's share of the Nile, as well as the power to veto any projects threatening its access to water. No other states in the region - some then under colonial rule - were party to the treaty, and all lacked the muscle to contest it.