South Sudan looks to join Water Agreement to boost water management, and development opportunities

South Sudan, the world’s newest state and a landlocked country in east-central Africa, lies at the center of the Nile River Basin, Africa’s longest river. Sharing large areas of transboundary wetlands, experiencing annual catastrophic floods and droughts, and facing enormous development and humanitarian challenges, South Sudan views enhanced cross-border cooperation as a key pillar of its long-term recovery, sustainable growth and regional integration.

In this context, South Sudan confirmed during a national workshop its determination to accelerate the process of accession to the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (UN Water Convention). The Convention is a unique global legal and governance framework for the sustainable management of transboundary water resources, served by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. South Sudan’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Mr. Pal Mai Deng, stressed that the country “is located at the heart of the Nile Basin, whose waters are transboundary in nature” and that “being part of this global convention will open up immeasurable opportunities for us.”

The national workshop, held on 18-19 July 2024 in Juba, was an opportunity to detail the obligations under the Convention, the benefits of accession, potential challenges, as well as the next steps in the process. The national workshop brought together over 80 participants from various ministries, Nile Basin organizations, regional organizations, academia, and civil society, among others. The national workshop revealed how the UN global water conventions (the 1992 UN Water Convention and the 1997 Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UN Watercourses Convention)) will add value to the many existing transboundary water cooperation initiatives that South Sudan is already part of or in the process of acceding to. The Minister specifically called on “development partners and donor agencies to support us in building capacity in the implementation of this Convention to add value to our existing knowledge of transboundary water management and governance.”

This workshop was timely as South Sudan is in the process of becoming a member of several basin agreements. A week earlier on 8 July, the Transitional National Legislative Assembly of South Sudan unanimously ratified the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) Cooperative Framework Agreement1, established in 1999. In May, the Ministry formally notified Lake and South Sudan of its intention to join other riparian states – Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda – as members of the Commission established in 2003. By joining the two transboundary river basin agreements and their associated institutions, South Sudan has signaled that it seeks to unlock major infrastructure projects and development resources as well as reduce flooding. Representatives of the Nile Basin Initiative and the Victoria River Basin Commission were supported by the UN Water Convention to participate in the workshop to share the rich collaborative experiences of their respective basin organizations, identify their alignment with the agreement and identify synergies for mutually reinforcing implementation.

This further underscores the momentum towards accession to the UN Water Convention in Africa, with Côte d’Ivoire becoming the 10th party in Africa and the 53rd overall, followed by Zimbabwe becoming the 54th party and the 11th in Africa this month, with Chad, Senegal, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Togo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Namibia and The Gambia joining the parties. Since the universal opening of the Convention to all UN Member States in 2016, 13 countries have acceded to the Convention – including Iraq and Panama, which became the first parties in their regions in 2023. More than 20 more countries are in the process of accession, most of them in Africa, including Zambia and Sierra Leone, which are in the final stages of accession. In the East African Community, Uganda (which shares the Nile and Lake Victoria) and Tanzania (which shares the Nile) are currently in the process of accession.

The recent findings of the third reporting exercise to measure progress towards SDG indicator 6.5.2 on transboundary water cooperation, presented to the joint custodian agencies, UNECE and UNESCO, demonstrate South Sudan’s already significant efforts towards strengthening transboundary cooperation. Operational cooperation agreements cover 55.5% of the country’s shared basins. Despite strong progress, challenges were also highlighted, particularly in relation to resource constraints, legal and institutional fragmentation of water governance, data collection and management, and groundwater management.

The EU Ambassador to South Sudan, Lothar Jaschke, acknowledged that accession to the agreement is a “historic moment” for South Sudan and will complement its ongoing initiatives on transboundary water cooperation, also highlighting the importance of transboundary water cooperation.