The West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) region has been actively working towards improving water security and resilient development through Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). This effort is driven by the WAEMU Commission, in collaboration with various international partners, including the Global Water Partnership – West Africa (GWP-WA), Pôle Eau Dakar (PED), the Netherlands Embassy in Burkina Faso, the Secretariat of the Water Convention, and the UNEP-DHI Centre on Water and Environment. The process aims to drive the large-scale implementation of IWRM at local, national, transboundary, and regional levels in the WAEMU region.

The regional report ‘Best Practices Manual for IWRM in the West Africa Economic and Monetary Union’ presents an overview of the issues related to water resources and the progress made in implementing IWRM (Chapter 1); a collection of ‘best practice’ case studies, with 25 at national and sub-national levels (Chapter 2), and 8 at transboundary levels (Chapter 3). Each case study presents the issues, activities, results, and lessons learned. The case studies are available only in French.

Key Challenges

The region faces major water management challenges from socio-demographic shifts, climate variability, and rising vulnerabilities. Significant progress includes new laws, policies, and action plans for IWRM, stronger basin organizations, and stakeholder initiatives from local to transboundary levels. Yet implementation remains uneven -averaging 52% in 2023 versus the global 57%.