Lake Chad Basin Commission Basin (not all of which feeds Lake Chad) includes eight countries, which, in descending area of land, included are: Chad, Niger, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Sudan, Algeria, and Libya. Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad (the four countries directly containing parts of Lake Chad and its wetlands) signed the Fort Lamy (today N'Djamena) Convention on May 22, 1964, which created the Lake Chad Basin Commission. The Central African Republic joined in 1996, and Libya joined in 2008. Sudan was admitted in July 2000, but has observer status because it has not ratified the founding convention. Algeria has not participated. The
Rail transport in Chad government to build a line that would open the colony’s interior to trade. The syndicate sponsored expeditions in 1902–3 and 1904 to survey the projected route. Several plans or proposals to build railways during the French colonial period (French Equatorial Africa) in Chad, and to connect Chad to other African railway networks (Cameroon, Nigeria, Oubangui/Central African Republic). Early proposals include a line extending from the Cameroon rail system at Douala into Chad in the 1930s. One early unofficial plan was a study for a railway from Douala in Cameroon to Bangui, which was part of the pre-World War I German