The Lake Chad Basin currently covers an area of 966.955 km² across Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, and provides water and livelihood though agriculture, livestock and fishing for an estimated 30 million people. The Lake and its adjacent wetlands and rivers is moreover home to globally and regionally important biodiversity, and has been classified as ecological zone of international importance for biodiversity under the Ramsar Wetlands Convention. The basin has been under severe demographic and climate change pressure on its natural resources for decades, leading to a reduction of the Lake Chad’s surface from 25.000 km² in 1960 to 2.500 now, under the combined effect of erosion, sedimentation, drought and desertification. The global objective of the PRODEBALT is poverty reduction for the people living off the resources of the Lake and its basin.
The specific objectives are:
(i) rehabilitation and conservation of the productive capacity of the ecosystems of Lake Chad and its Basin ;
(ii) the adaptation of the production systems to climate change.