Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Chad, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger and Nigeria signed a general declaration promising "durable and shared development" of the area but without specifying any concrete measures.

The 4,200-kilometre (2,500-mile) Niger River runs in an arc through the Sahara desert and out into the Gulf of Guinea, passing through five of the countries and sending off-shoots into the others.

Some 110 million people in the region rely on it for fresh water, fishing, agriculture and raising livestock.

The declaration said that any projects that would have a significant effect on the river must first be put up for joint consultation by all the states, with "conciliation and mediation" the preferred options to resolve differences.

Presidents Mamadou Tandja of Niger, Mathieu Kerekou of Benin, Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso, Paul Biya of Cameroon, Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Idriss Deby of Chad, and Prime Minister Lounseny Fall of Guinea and Ivory Coast Minister for African Integration Theodore Mel Eg signed the document.

"The urgency is to have sufficient resources for projects and actions aimed at fighting desertification and to protect the environment," Tandja, the current head of the African forum tasked with tackling the issue, said as he opened the summit in Paris.

"The river today risks becoming an area of desolation and misery for the populations" along it, he warned.

French President Jacques Chirac told the delegates that they would have "all the support" of his country in ensuring that the resources of the river and its management were equitably shared.

He noted that finding and maintaining useable water supplies in sub-Saharan Africa was "a daily challenge" and he said that, if nothing was soon done, conditions for the population in the area -- which is expected to double by 2020 -- would badly deteriorate.

TERRA.WIRE