Despite more than a decade of externally funded water and sanitation infrastructure projects in Lusaka, the city’s slums are the epicentre of the most recent cholera outbreak that still lingers six months after the first case was reported. The government’s heavy handed response to this outbreak has added insult to injury for poor communities living in, what is referred to in politically correct parlance as, peri-urban areas. It is the poor that suffer the indignity of sanitation and water inadequacies, a result of more than two decades of failed policy intervention. 

The international conference on saving the Lake Chad was held in Abuja, Nigeria on 25-28 February 2018. The theme of the meeting was “Saving the Lake Chad to revitalise the Basin’s ecosystem for sustainable livelihood, security and development.” With over 1600 participants and presenters attending, this meeting grappled with the issues of how to go about saving Lake Chad. It was concluded that the Transaqua project, which would take water from the right tributary of inter-lacustrine region, and the River Congo, conveying the 2,000km water channel to Chari River is the preferred feasible option to save the Lake.