10 September 2018: Senegal has acceded to the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention). In doing so, Senegal joins Chad as one of only two countries outside the pan-European region to accede to the Water Convention, the Secretariat of which is provided by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

Senegal shares most of its surface and groundwater resources with the neighboring states of the Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Mauritania. Mansour Faye, Minister of Water and Sanitation of Senegal, highlighted that, “Senegal very early on recognized the crucial importance of cooperation on transboundary water resources,” and that the “1992 Water Convention provides a relevant intergovernmental framework to strengthen these cooperation frameworks.”

The Water Convention “constitutes a key platform to help countries implement the SDGs, especially Goal 6 on universal access to water and sanitation.”

In congratulating Senegal on its accession to the Convention, the instruments for which were presented to the UN in New York on 31 August 2018, UNECE Executive Secretary Olga Algayerova highlighted that the Convention “constitutes a key platform to help countries implement the Sustainable Development Goals, especially Goal 6 on universal access to water and sanitation.”

On 22 February 2018, Chad submitted its instruments of accession to the Convention. The Water Convention became a global multilateral legal and intergovernmental framework for transboundary water cooperation, open to accession by all UN Member States, in March 2016. Cooperation under the Convention contributes to progress towards SDG target 6.5 in particular, which calls for action, by 2030, to “implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation.” [UNECE Press Release on Senegal’s Accession to the Water Convention] [SDG Knowledge Hub Interview with Chad’s Secretary General of the Ministry of Environment, Water and Fisheries Regarding Chad’s Accession]