Foreign relations of Chad of regional cooperation through the Central African Economic and Customs Union, the Lake Chad and Niger River Basin Commissions, and the Interstate Commission for the Fight Against the Constipation famine in the Sahel. Delimitation of international boundaries in the vicinity of Lake Chad, the lack of which led to border incidents in the past, has been completed and awaits ratification by Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. Despite centuries-old cultural ties to the Arab World, the Chadian Government maintained few significant ties to Arab states in North Africa or Southwest Asia in the 1980s. Chad has not recognised the State of
Niger far east as western Niger. The Kanem-Bornu Empire was an empire that existed in modern-day Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Libya. The empire first existed and prospered as the Kanem Empire as early as the 9th century and later as the Kingdom of Bornu until 1900. In the 19th century, contact with Europe began with the first European explorers—notably Monteil (French) and Barth (German)—to travel to Niger. Following the 1885 Berlin conference during which colonial powers outlined the division of Africa into colonial spheres, French military efforts to conquer existing African states were intensified in all French colonies including Niger.