By Alexis Adélé
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved a loan of €55.33 million to Senegal for the second phase of a life transforming water project in the country.
The beneficiary project, known as the Water Valorisation for Value Chains Development Project, will help achieve a significant and long-lasting increase in agricultural production, employment, and income in the target regions with a special focus on making better use of surface water and groundwater.
“The satisfactory results accomplished during the first phase of the project, which have been greatly appreciated by the beneficiaries, have given rise to new challenges related to consolidating those achievements, and the provision of support to young and female ‘agripreneurs’ to ensure that investments are put to optimum use,” said Mohamed Chérif, the African Development Bank’s Country Manager for Senegal. “The need to offer similar opportunities and extend them to other regions also justifies a second phase.”
The project provides for the development of 9,000 hectares, including 1,950 ha of saline soil, 450 ha of collective market garden areas, the revamping and strengthening of 15 existing irrigated zones, as well as the installation of 10 solar-powered water sources for livestock and 20 km of drinking water systems in the same vicinity.
The project also includes the construction of marketing infrastructure. This involves building 130 km of production lanes, most of which will be upgraded, the construction of 20 storage facilities, each holding 100 tonnes, and four consolidation centres with cold rooms that can hold 300 to 500 tonnes each.
To promote employment and support youth entrepreneurship, PROVALE CV-2 provides for the building of 1,250 farms covering a total area of 2,000 ha, and the construction and equipping of 40 agricultural mechanisation centres, 50 multifunctional platforms and 50 solar-powered processing units. The project will also support the establishment of 180 livestock production units and 60 aquaculture farms.
This second phase of the Water Valorisation for Value Chains Development Project covers nine administrative regions: Louga, Thiès, Kaolack, Fatick, Kaffrine, Diourbel, Ziguinchor, Sédhiou and Kolda. Louga, which has similar agro-climatic and socio-economic vulnerabilities to the eight regions involved in the first phase, is the extension zone for this project, which will directly benefit almost 57,000 households, or around 570,000 people.