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The News N° 25 - February 2015
FRom one conTinenT To anoTHeR
AFRICA
TheMouhoun Basinwas selected to be
the pilot basin for the establishment of
a newWater Policy inBurkina Faso
IOWater
is implementing a programwhich
started in 2013 for a 2-year duration. It aims
to support the Burkinabe Authorities in their
approach to IWRM, through thedevelopment
of methodologies and tools for knowledge
and good water resources management in
theMouhounBasin,
under thepartnership
between the Mouhoun Water Agency
(AEM) and the French Adour-Garonne
and Seine-NormandyWater Agencies.
A first mission on the topics of planning and
governance took place in Burkina Faso in
March 2014.
It was the opportunity to help in
the draf-
ting of theMaster Plan forWater Deve-
lopment and Management (SDAGE) of
theMouhoun,
whichwas finally adopted in
July 2014.
The French partners received a high-level
delegation of AEM and theMinistry of Water
and Hydraulic Structures to show concretely
and through case studies the French “Water
Police” practices.
Finally, in the context of
the gradual esta-
blishment of the “Financial Contribution
to Water” adopted in Burkina Faso in
2009
, a fact-findingmission took place early
2015 in Dédougou, AEM home office, to
work on the recovery of this tax on water
withdrawals in the basin.
Knowledge and characterization of users
being aprerequisite, capacity building indata
management has also been proposed.
The Mouhoun Water Agency has now a
”SDAGE” (Basin Management Plan), the first
one in Burkina.
Cooperation efforts are now focusing on the
implementation of
a Program ofMeasures
to achieve the selectedobjectives.
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Burkina Faso
MouhounWater Agency
IOWater is coordinating the project for
support to the NakanbéWater Agency
(AEN), initiated in2011with the helpof
the French Loire-BrittanyWater Agency
(AELB).
As a first phase of this partnership had been
successful, the secondphasewas launched in
2014and startedwith the receptionof adele-
gation of three
”AEN”
members in France.
For 10 days, these experts in planning, fun-
ding andwater qualitymonitoring have been
able to ”immerse themselves” in the
”AELB”,
with regard to the implementation of the
”SDAGE” (Basin Management Plan), water
treatment and protection of the resource.
A documentary film about the role of elected
officials in resources management in the
Nakanbé Basin was also made in Burkina
Faso and will be screened at the 7
th
World
Water Forum in Korea.
Theprocessof establishing theNakanbé
Basin Management Plan is underway:
one of the challenges for 2015 is to support
”AEN”
in this process and help it to prepare
its implementation.
As the
“White Volta”
is a transboundary
river,
a link was established with the
Water Resources Commission in Ghana
and more specifically with the White
Volta Basin Board,
which covers the lower
Nakanbé River Basin. A mission of
”AELB”
and
IOWater
took place in Accra in May
2014 to share planning and financing issues
with the Ghanaian partners, in partnership
with the
VoltaBasinAuthority.
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Integratedmanagement of the Nakanbé
in Burkina and theWhite Volta in Ghana
TheMouhoun River
French
Development
Agency
(AFD)
A new partnership
with IOWater
The final version of
the ”Report on the
experience of Transboundary River
Basin Organizations - Good Practices
and Recommendations”,
produced by
IOWater
with
AFD
support, was released
inApril 2014. It is available
on the IOWa-
ter website
in French and English ver-
sions.
In the following of this collaboration, a
partnership agreementwas signedby
AFD
and
IOWater
about various topics of colla-
boration.
The activities carried out in 2014 as part of
this partnership are:
l
Support to the river basin organi-
zations
of the Senegal (OMVS), Niger
(NBA), Congo (CICOS), Volta (VBA),
Chad (LCBC) andMekong (MRC), to the
Water Resources Coordination Center
(WRCC) of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) and to
theAfricanNetwork of BasinOrganiza-
tions (ANBO);
l
Facilitationof aworkinggroup for
the hydrological monitoring of
major transboundary basins;
capi-
talization of trainingmaterials and pre-
figuration of a sustainable funding
model forWHYCOS projects;
l
Establishment of aworking group
on satellite altimetry applied to
hydrology.
As part of this activity, a firstmeetingof the
WorkingGroupwas held at the IRDMont-
pellier in November 2014 at the invitation
of
IOWater
and under the aegis of AFD,
withCNES, IRD, IRSTEA, BRL andCNR.
This is a firstmeetingbringing together the
worlds of space, hydrology and water
resourcesmanagement.
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