Niger - Water Harnessing Study in the Maradi Region

The water mobilization study in the Maradi region, which is the subject of this intervention, fits in perfectly with the Government's policy aimed at strengthening the country's food security and with the overall strategy to fight against poverty and aims at improving the living conditions of the populations. It proposes to develop, for the Maradi region and at the level of the various watersheds, a development program focused on the valorization of sites likely to retain or store surface or underground water, with a view to an increase in plant and / or animal production. At the level of the Goulbi de Maradi Basin, which is a valley with very high agricultural potential, the study should specifically analyze the possibilities of water releases from the Jibiya dam in Nigeria, and this, within the general framework of the cooperation agreement concluded between the two countries in 1990 in Maidugari. Through a method of consultation involving all the actors concerned, the study should give special attention to sites that can be identified by the population and for which development potential exists. The basic principles of the study are based on: (i) an overall management of water resources, at the level of the different watersheds, integrating the transboundary character of certain hydrographic units; (ii) taking into account environmental and social issues, with particular attention to the human aspects of the most vulnerable population groups and, in physical terms, to soil erosion; and (iii) optimal and concerted valorisation of the developed sites, adapted to the situations encountered and answering in the first place to the users' initiatives and expectations.