2023-10-06 10:41:44
The World Bank shared, during a high-level dialogue with five countries in the Sahel geographical area, the results of a global study and another specific to the region demonstrating the importance of access to groundwater for climate change resilience in the Sahel.
This meeting brought together the World Bank’s water expertise center, sectoral ministers from Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Chad and development partners, according to a press release published Thursday by the Bank.
This text states that the global study found that in times of drought, access to groundwater can lead to a 50% increase in agricultural yields. Analytical work in the Sahel also presents the development of groundwater as a lever for improving pastoral productivity. They support both livelihoods and the ecosystems on which they depend.
According to the Director of the World Bank’s water expertise center, Saroj Kumar Jha, quoted in the press release, “this high-level meeting made it possible to highlight the pressing need and the promising opportunity to develop the irrigation from groundwater, which remains rare in the Sahel.
Recalling that “groundwater constitutes a vital link between the environment, animal health and human well-being”, he informed that “the World Bank, through its International Water Cooperation in Africa (CIWA) programme, intends to facilitate investments capable of reflecting this interconnection in the Sahel.
Through the One Health approach, these investments “should enable the supply of clean water, the facilitation of concentration points for human and animal vaccination campaigns and the reduction of pressure on the environment,” he said. he adds.
For her part, Fatouma Touré Ibrahima, water sector director of the World Bank for West Africa, emphasizing the training of professionals, maintained that “groundwater specialists are the key to the management and preservation of these resources.
The World Bank congratulated the countries concerned in their desire to strengthen their cooperation, stressing that their collective efforts should help secure this precious resource for generations to come.
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