In 2018, an International Conference on saving Lake Chad was held in Abuja, Nigeria, under the auspices of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC). This Conference followed the memorandum of understanding concluded in 2016 between LCBC and the Power Construction Corporation of China for the realisation of the Transaqua Project—an inter-basin water transfer from the Congo basin to the Lake Chad basin which is plagued by the drying up of its water surface. The Silencing the Guns in Africa Project (STG) is one of the fundamental pillars of the Agenda 2063 designed and set up by African Union Leaders to rid Africa of civil and violent conflict in all manifestations by 2020. Its 2016 Lusaka Master Roadmap detailed steps, including the reduction of livelihood vulnerabilities to climate change by creating resilience systems such as the Transaqua project, to tackle a range of factors identified as drivers of conflicts in Lake Chad borderlands. This analysis aims to examine the role of expertise and decision-making within the global climate governance and sustainable development nexus through a multi-scalar case study approach looking at how policy documents, instrumental organisations and key figures within them have articulated Lake Chad’s imaginings of climate action through water resources projects like the Transaqua project. Particularly, it is interested in discerning whose interests are pursued in this project and whose are relegated to the margins.