The French Development Agency (AFD) has signed a grant agreement worth 6 million euros with the Senegalese government. The funding will help preserve water resources in order to prevent the depletion of the Pout aquifer located in the west of the country.
The 6 million euro grant recently awarded by the French Development Agency (AFD) is intended for the preservation of water resources and the improvement of groundwater recharge in the Pout region. This Paleocene aquifer (a period between 65 and 55 million years ago, editor’s note) located in western Senegal is one of the main sources of drinking water for the Senegalese capital Dakar.
However, this groundwater resource is overexploited, with a level of abstraction that exceeds the recharge capacity of the aquifers by rainwater and rivers in the region. And according to experts, if concrete actions are not implemented to preserve the resource, the Pout aquifers could be exhausted. According to the AFD, the overexploitation of this aquifer is encouraged by the multiplicity of actors operating in the Pout area. Therefore, the acceleration of the depletion of these aquifers is accentuated by climate change.
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Faced with this situation, the General Directorate for the Protection and Management of Water Resources (DGPRE) of the Senegalese Ministry of Water and Sanitation plans to strengthen the integrated management of the resource by local stakeholders and to optimize withdrawals for different uses. It will also involve investing in solutions to promote groundwater recharge.
These solutions will be based on nature and “backed by a method of governance of the resource that is unprecedented in Senegal, the water table contract, based on a concerted approach between all the stakeholders concerned and ensuring the role of women in the implementation of the project,” says AFD. These investments will be made in the councils of Mont-Rolland, Pout, Keur Moussa and Diender.
Jean Marie Takouleu
