That the shrinkage of Lake Chad in Central Africa is aggravating environmental degradation and affecting people in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad is well documented.

However, the lake’s basin countries have been slow in coming up with mitigating solutions to either slow down or revive the degraded environment leading to increased migration as people move in search of livelihoods, according to climate change experts.

On November 16, the Lake Chad Basin Commission sitting in Cameroonian capital Yaoundé unveiled a $964.6 million plan to save the fast-shrinking water mass and also launched the Lake Chad Development and Climate Resilience Action Plan to be presented at the UN summit on climate change being held in Paris from November 30 to December 11.

Donors are expected to provide 90 per cent of the funding with the six member states of the commission — Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, the Central African Republic and Sudan — providing the rest.

The commission has identified poverty alleviation, food security, employment and social inclusion by improving, in a sustainable way, the living standards of the people of the Lake Chad basin as the key issues to be tackled through the provision of basic infrastructure, healthcare, education, access to clean water, protection of the environment, conflict management, peace and security and support to productive sectors for easy access to resources and markets.

“Our able-bodied youths are moving to Europe. The international community should help us to manage the issue of migration,” said commission executive secretary Sanusi Imran Abdoullahi.

Experts say the Lake Chad basin offers one illustration of how land degradation is associated with migration and conflict.

Statistics from the commission show that in the early 1960s, the lake covered 25,000sq km, straddling the borders of Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Today, deforestation, unsustainable irrigation and climate change have reduced it to barely 1,400sq km.

Environment experts warn that if urgent measures are not taken, poverty and insecurity in the region will worsen.

“Environmental breakdown and security threats in the Lake Chad basin, especially in Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria, are increasing and we need additional effort if we are to fight poverty, preserve peace and promote sustainable development,” said Cameroon’s Minister for Economy, Planning and Regional Development Yaouba Abdoulaye, who chaired the Yaoundé meeting.