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H17395

Headlines : Human Rights

Summary:

The Niger is the third longest river in Africa and it is dying as a result of climate change and pollution, exacerbated by 3% per annum population growth.

The river runs through 9 countries, which are banding together to implement a 20 year program of desilting and reforestation in order to help the 110 million people of the basin to a sustainable existence. The project appears to be managed by the people in West Africa themselves. The words Bechtel and World Bank do not appear in the article so there are grounds for optimism.

[Posted By Watson]

By Unattributed
Republished from AFP

Nations band together to combat climate change and pollution

West African heads of state adopted on Wednesday a 5.5 billion-euro (8.6-billion-dollar), 20-year rescue plan to save the Niger River from extinction and guarantee the future of 110 million people.

The green light for the vast project was given by members of the Niger Basin Authority (ABN), an intergovernmental group comprising the nine countries irrigated by Africa’s third longest river and its tributaries.

The programme will consist of reforesting, rehabilitating plains and removing silt from the 4,200 kilometre (2,600 mile) long Niger snaking through Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.

More than 80 percent of the funds allocated for the vast project were earmarked for developing social and economic infrastructures. A far smaller chunk was to be spent on protecting natural resources and ecosystems.

The plan, approved in Niger’s capital Niamey, will be implemented in four five-year phases and will not reach fruition until 2027.

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