This paper investigates two types of water and land resource systems-pastoral systems and irrigation schemes-in the Sahelian region. By examining the traditional management systems in Niger, Mali and Senegal, this paper intends to offer a comparative analysis to determine the factors that characterize successful collective actions with regard to common pool resources, and the external factors that would disrupt preexisting systems. Building on the model provided by Elinor Ostrom (1990), this paper will also propose a solution for development efforts, government agencies and other external forces to intervene. The human right to water has the potential to monitor states' performance and to guide states to build better water governance regimes. Yet, in the future more efforts are still needed to form a clear water rights framework to accommodate different objectives and strategies that can be found in the human rights discourse, development economists, and international water and environmental law discourse. More importantly, human rights language needs to be able to accommodate the communality and collectivity that is deeply rooted in African communities.

This report analyses the factors which motivate land use by rural populations and provides a context for any policy or strategy which addresses natural resource conservation in the Sahel. The author suggest that production systems in the Sahel have reached or even exceeded their capacity to respond to the needs of a growing population and further that development aid has only had a negligible impact on the trend to over exploit. It offers a different perspective on issues concerning the Sahel.

Covers the situation in the Sahelan countries and other similar countries - Sudan, Northern Kenya - from the viewpoint of the whole area as a deprived region. The report covers such topics as geography, history, independence, aid programmes and the legal protection of minorities.