DEVELOPMENT: New Plans for Niger Basin

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Michael Deibert

PARIS, Jun 26 2007 (IPS) - New plans are being developed for the 4,100 km Niger River that passes through several West African countries.

Regional leaders, with support from the World Bank and member states of the European Union, are now seeking to turn the Niger River&#39s sprawling, churning expanse into a regional advantage, building up the region&#39s economy and linking nations together in a shared vision of environmental preservation along the way.

The third-longest river on the continent of Africa, after the Nile and the Congo, the Niger begins its path in Guinea and provides a lifeline for the often parched desert environs of Mali and Niger. The river finally merges with the Benue in Nigeria before emptying into the Gulf of Guinea.

The second donors&#39 meeting of the Niger Basin Authority (NBA) held at the World Bank&#39s Paris offices last week sought to consolidate, reinforce and implement the Sustainable Development Action Programme (SDAP) for the region, linking local players with donors and experts to implement a long-term programme for the region.

The NBA is the successor body to the Niger River Commission (NRC), formed in November 1964 during the high-water mark of the drive for independence from colonial rule by Africa&#39s budding nation-states. It was re-dubbed the Niger Basin Authority in 1980. The NBA&#39s nine member countries are Burkina Faso, Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d&#39Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria .

The institution is modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority created in the United States in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression in a multi-state enterprise overseen by the federal government. The Authority was tasked with, in addition to such traditional responsibilities as flood control and navigational advice, helping to generate electricity and develop the regional economies of states in the valley.

"It&#39s complicated, but fundamentally it&#39s necessary," says Ousmane Dione, a water resources management specialist with the World Bank, of the discussions between officials and donors at the organisation&#39s Paris headquarters.

"We are talking about sovereign countries, all of them ranked among the poorest in the world, sharing the River Niger. There is a critical need for development which needs to be addressed," he told IPS.

Dione hopes the SDAP, which was under intense discussion, would "lay the groundwork for all investment in the coming 25 years across the basin."

One of the first orders of business, already partly under way, is the implementation of a silting control programme which seeks to erect dunes and reclaim swaths of the river from granular deposits that have impeded boat traffic and obstructed water passages, particularly in the central Malian deserts, in Burkina Faso and along the right bank of the river upstream from Niamey, the capital city of Niger.

Making the Niger River easier for boats to navigate could lead to improved trade flows in the region.

"We are looking at this in a strategic way, responding to this shared vision approach developed by the member states," says Andre Liebaert, a water policy advisor with the European Commission in Brussels. "We have developed a partnership with Africa." The European Commission serves as the executive body of the European Union.

Proposals coming out of the NBA meeting may be released as soon as next week but the strategic plan as a whole is not expected for some time. The Integrated Water Resource Management programme under the European Union Water Initiative has selected the basin as one of five African pilot river basins to receive nearly 10 million euros to help conduct feasibility studies and facilitate development.

Individual EU member states are also looking to get involved with the basin&#39s development. In fact, the SDAP itself grew out of an April 2004 meeting sponsored by then French president Jacques Chirac, where the nine heads of state of NBA-affiliated countries signed a document that became known as the Paris Declaration, vowing to work together to utilise the river&#39s reserves.

The development of the Niger Delta has also had a hand from local partners, including the African Development Bank. In October 2006, the NBA signed a grant agreement with the bank to fund a joint basin-wide hydrological monitoring system which will help member states plan use of the water resources gleaned from the river.

"The African leaders have made it clear that they are willing to work together for the sustainable development of the basin," says Mohammed Bello Tuga, executive secretary of the NBA, who sees the project as a way of helping to create a more integrated and less factionalized West Africa.

"There is a lot of encroachment by the desert and other erosion, but now we are engaged in projects to counter them. As we know, these problems do not have political boundaries," he said.