Samendéni Dam Project.
Introduction
Burkina Faso’s agriculture sector generates roughly a third of the country’s GDP and employs 80% of the population. The agricultural potential in the southwest parts of the country is quite high, characterized by abundant annual rainfall exceeding 1000 mm and the availability of rich soil. Moreover, the water systems predominated by the Mouhoun river basin offer the possibility of undertaking large irrigation schemes to boost agricultural production.
Therefore, the country launched the Projet de Développement Intégré de Samendéni (PDIS) with the objective to improve the socio-economic conditions of about 425,000 people.
Objectives
- Regulate the watercourse of the Mouhoun river in Samendéni to protect the infrastructures and crops downstream.
- Increase the electrical production in the project area.
- Increase the agricultural production in the area.
The project objectives were aligned with the main axes of the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), adopted in the year 2000 (and updated in 2003) which was subsequently supplemented with the Strategy for Accelerated Growth and Sustainable Development (2011-2015).
The third axis of the PRSP aimed at increasing employment opportunities and income generating activities for the poor, based on equity, by among other actions, intensifying and diversifying crop production.
The project is equally aligned with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which was the global framework driving the global development agenda and particularly, Goal 1 of “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger”, and Goal 7 of “Ensuring environmental sustainability”. Similarly, the project was well aligned with the Bank’s strategic objective of poverty alleviation, and 2 of its priority intervention areas which are agriculture development and food security and infrastructure development.
Positive Impact
The completion of the Samandéni dam has created around 9,500 jobs at this stage and will create more through the forthcoming operationalization of the other components of the program. The dam construction was marred with difficulties inherent to such large infrastructure, and the downstream land development is usually undertaken in a phased approach, as the resource mobilization efforts are huge.
But ultimately, the project is likely to achieve its positive results, as the provision of additional water resources will serve not only for agriculture production (SDGs1&2), but also for producing clean energy (SDG7) and fighting climate change (SDG13), while providing Burkina Faso with additional water storage capacity of 1.050 billion cubic meters (SDG6).
Given its integrated design and taking into account all the developments that took place as part of the resettlement plan and the infrastructure constructed (schools, health centers, boreholes, rural roads, etc.) the project is contributing to additional SDGs, including SDG 3 (health), 4 (education). These will be further enhanced once the first phase of the land development component is completed.
Given also the soil, water potential and hydropower potential of the Samandeni dam area, the GoBF is planning to transform the area into a pole of growth for the country, around food processing industries (SDG1 and SDG2).Similar developments already took place under another program financed by the Bank “Bagre irrigation development”, financed by the Bank in 1999.