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Good practice Imported

PROLAC — Lake Chad Basin Recovery and Development Project

Chad · Bol · See the Chad profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 58% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A $170M World Bank-financed regional programme rehabilitating water basins, polders and irrigation across Cameroon, Chad and Niger's Lake Chad basin, reaching 1.5 million people and more than doubling women farmers' harvests amid drought and conflict recovery.

434,000+
People directly supported (first 5 years)
1.5 million
People reached with climate-resilient livelihoods
more than doubled
Women farmers' harvest increase (vs. 2 years earlier)
PROLAC — Lake Chad Basin Recovery and Development Project

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) & World Bank (IDA)
Period
2020–2026
Keywords
water resources, agriculture, rural livelihoods, disaster recovery

Context

Launched in 2020 by Cameroon, Chad and Niger with the World Bank (IDA) and the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC), PROLAC is the $170M core of a wider $346M package addressing collapsed livelihoods and ecosystems around a lake that has shrunk drastically since the 1960s amid drought and conflict-driven displacement.

Activities

The programme rehabilitates shared water basins and agricultural polders, installs irrigation systems and boreholes, and distributes seeds and equipment — supporting oasis agriculture in Niger, polder farming in Chad and shoreline farming in Cameroon's Far North — coordinated through a joint LCBC data platform.

Results

World Bank reporting states the project directly supported more than 434,000 people within its first five years and contributed to climate-resilient agriculture and livelihoods for 1.5 million people overall, with women's harvests in supported areas more than doubling compared with two years earlier.

Conclusions

These figures come from the implementing institutions themselves; no independent third-party impact evaluation was found, so outcomes should be read as programme-reported rather than externally verified.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Very high (> €5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) joint data platform staff, World Bank (IDA) project team, National implementing agencies in Cameroon, Chad and Niger, Local agricultural extension/field staff distributing seeds and equipment

Conditions for success

  • Coordinated cross-border institutional structure (LCBC) to manage a shared basin
  • Large concessional financing (IDA) able to cover basin-wide infrastructure
  • Stable-enough security conditions to reach conflict-affected areas

Common failure modes

  • No independent third-party impact evaluation found — outcome figures come from implementing institutions themselves
  • Conflict and displacement in parts of the basin can disrupt implementation

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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