The Noumbiel dam construction project is back on track. This follows a meeting between officials of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Burkinabe Minister of Water and Sanitation, Ousmane Nacro, on 15 and 16 September 2021 in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. At the end of the meeting, the AfDB promised a cheque worth 4.5 million euros for the construction of the project.
This financing will allow the relaunch of a project that was suspended about ten years ago. “The project was blocked because of a disagreement between Burkina Faso and Ghana. Indeed, while Burkina Faso wanted to make it a hydroelectric dam, Ghana favoured the agricultural aspect,” explains Ousmane Nacro, Burkina Faso’s Minister for Water and Sanitation. After negotiations, the project was presented to several African and global bodies and was included in June 2020 in the Priority Action Plan 2 of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PAP2-PIDA).
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The Volta Basin Authority (VBA), of which Burkina Faso and Ghana are members, is piloting the Noumbiel dam project. The dam will have a storage capacity of 11.3 billion m3 and a gross reservoir volume of 8.8 billion m3. The government estimates that with this capacity, the hydroelectric potential of the structure will be over 303 GWh. “The dam will also irrigate about 9,000 hectares of plantations in Ghana,” says Yaovi Robert Dessouassi, the executive director of the VBA. This should ensure better agricultural yields in the various beneficiary areas.
Inès Magoum