The Volta Basin spans 6 West African countries, covering an area of 400,000 km2, with most of the basin falling within Burkina Faso and Ghana. The transboundary White Volta Basin Authority was established in 2007 to improve water governance and management across the basin through multi-level participatory frameworks.
BRAVE participation in the Volta Basin Authority 5 year Planning Meeting in 2017 ensured that the sustainable use of groundwater, which has previously been overlooked with the focus remaining on surface water, was incorporated into the IWRM plan and introduced the concept of knowledge exchange, establishing a two-way dialogue between the water supply sector and community users of water.
Following on from this engagement, the Volta Basin Authority specifically requested support from BRAVE to incorporate consideration of gender issues and to review and expand sections of the IWRM plan relating to groundwater resources and sustainable use.
The integration of groundwater and poverty has been supported by attendance of key policy makers from the Volta Basin Authority and CONIWAS at the Adaptive Social Protection training held in early 2020 in Accra, Ghana.
- Cornforth et al (2019) Possible futures for groundwater in Burkina Faso under a changing climate, Poster
- UPGro blog (2018) BRAVE policy roundtable and synthesis day
UPGro - African Groundwater 2020 