During the activities of the Elevens session of the RA I Working Group on Hydrology the participants made presentations on the state of National Hydrological Services, their operations, the status of hydrometric monitoring networks and activities, the challenges faced by the Services, as well as, strategies to address these challenges. In all, ten presentations from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda were made. It emerged that all the countries are making strenuous efforts to keep their hydrometric networks functioning, albeit, with some challenges.

The challenges identified by the countries include:

a) Lack or dwindling funding from national and external sources;
b) Difficulties in paying gauge readers and observers;
c) Inadequate qualified and aging staff to handle field measurements, water quality and sediment monitoring, remote sensing;
d) GIS applications, and installation and configuration of automatic hydrometric stations;
e) Vandalism of installed field equipment by some local residents;
f) Aging and inadequate equipment for field installations and measurements;
g) Abandonment of hydrometric monitoring stations due to lack of resources;
h) Absence of efficient hydrological information system for effective dissemination of hydrological information to end-users;
i) Absence of collaboration with other national and international institutions involved in water resources assessment;
j) Difficulty to convey to governments the importance of collecting data on water for socio-economic development and the well being of society.