Kenya and Tanzania: Living on the Mara River, together

Project aim: To provide social and scientific data on water use along the Mara River to form the basis of a transboundary water allocation plan and water treaty

Project implementation: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

Project partner: Nile Basin Initiative

Project funding: Financed from sources including the German Federal Environment Ministry's International Climate Initiative, which is supporting the project with 6 million euros ($6.6 million)

Project area: Kenya and Tanzania

Project duration: October 2015 to March 2021

The Mara River is essential for lives and livelihoods in both Kenya and Tanzania. But flowing across the border, it also represents a source of potential conflict. From dam projects to pollution from agriculture, what happens to the Mara in Kenya impacts those reliant on it downstream in Tanzania.

The solution? A cross-border water management plan. The two countries will negotiate their terms and access, but first they need to know: Who uses the water? How? Where? When? And, essentially, how much?

The Nile Basin Initiative — an intergovernmental partnership of 10 Nile Basin countries — and GIZ are working with scientists to answer these questions. 

They are also interviewing communities along the Mara to understand the role it plays in their lives — providing drinking water, fish and a place to bathe. And it's not just communities that are reliant on the river, which also supports a wealth of biodiversity in surrounding wetlands.

The project's findings will lay the foundations for a water treaty to ensure people and wildlife on both sides of the border can continue to rely on the Mara's life-giving waters.