Kick off meeting
Video credit: TM2
Participants photo
The water quality of the Niger River is a major challenge for Mali. Indeed, there are real risks of contamination of these waters due, among other things, to: (i) the physical setting of the city, with about twenty rivers flowing into the River and transformed into a dump; (ii) a poorly developed and inadequate sewage system with only 3.6% of satisfied need (SDAB 2008) and (iii) discharges of domestic, artisanal and industrial wastewater into the river.
The big question is whether water from the Niger River is polluted. This is a difficult question to answer, because, currently, there is no water quality monitoring system . Through the project "Capture and share continuous water quality data of the Niger River around Bamako”, ABFN and its partners (Akvo, Indymo, the National Coordination of users of the resources of the basin of the Niger River in Mali (CNU), le Laboratoire National des Eaux (LNE) of Mali want to fill this gap. In short term, our project will address those challenges and provide a strong basis to develop efficient plans to address the pollution in the Niger River, by:
- Continuously measuring the water quality in the Niger in Bamako, making use of innovative tools for human monitoring and in-situ monitoring in combination with satellite monitoring.
- Developing one central repository to collect this data, combine it with other (already existing) data streams and visualize it in such a way that the data becomes information on which policies can be based.
- Map the stakeholders and projects active on water quality around the Niger in Bamako and present this information in the same central repository.
- Bring together and activate more stakeholders by enabling them to measure water quality themselves and by providing public access to the overall data via the CNU network.
The kick off meeting of the Protect " Capture and share continuous Water Quality data of the Niger River around Bamako " was held In 2017 and 24th August in the Center for Forest Practical Training (CFPF) "Colonel Jean Djigui KEITA" in Tabacoro. The opening ceremony was chaired by Mr Abdoulaye Berthé, General Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Sanitation and Sustainable Development. The workshop was attended by some fifty people from the technical services, Civil Society's organizations, users of the resources of the Niger River basin in Mali, university, technical and financial partners.
The project receives funding from the State of Mali through ABFN and Aqua for All through Via Water for an amount of € 250,000.
The first phase of the project will be implemented from July 2017 to November 2018.