GENEVA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Landlocked and desert-prone Chad has become the first country outside the pan-European area to accede to the Water Convention, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) said Tuesday.
The Convention on the Protection and Use of Trans-boundary Watercourses and International Lakes is serviced by the UNECE and Chad submitted its instruments of accession to the UN in New York on Feb. 22.
Chad is considered a key country in the ecosystem of the northern Central African region which it shares with north and east African countries.
It had initiated the process of accession to the Water Convention in early 2017, Jean Rodriguez, chief of the UNECE Information Unit said at a UN briefing here.
"Chad's accession to the Water Convention builds on decades of cooperation with neighboring countries," he said.
The Water Convention works in areas such as climate change adaptation and in the water and food-energy nexus for the ecosystems in trans-boundary basins.
In joining the convention, Chad has committed to promoting the convention among member countries of the Chad basin to which it belongs and particularly to the framework of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and the Niger Basin Authority.
In a statement released by UNECE, Chad's Minister of Environment, Water, and Fisheries Sidick Abdelkerim Haggar explained that Lake Chad is the fourth largest lake in Africa and the Lake Chad Basin is drained by two rivers: the Chari and the Logone.
"These two rivers are largely supplied by tributaries outside Chad and in addition the Nubian sandstone aquifer system is shared between Chad, Libya, Sudan and Egypt," said Haggar.
These explained the need for Chad to join the Water Convention which he said "provides a framework for cooperation and exchange at the regional and international levels".
