Suleiman Adamu, Minister of Water Resources, has hinted that 5% of interbreeding water transfer from Congo basin draining into the Atlantic Ocean can save the lake-Chad desertion.
Adamu, made the disclosure on Tuesday at a press conference in Abuja to mark the 15th Anniversary of the African Ministers’ Council on Water.
He noted that with the Lake-Chad basin been threatened by climate change and high evaporation, studies shows that 5% of water into the Atlantic Ocean can keep the lake-Chad alive that It the interest AMCOW to ensure that this lake survive.
According to him, one of the key interest of President Muhammdu Buhari, is the need to save the Lake Chad basin, adding that the menace of Boko-haram insurgency have a lot to do with the lost of opportunity and environmental degradation of that Lake-Chad region.
“To revive the means of livelihood of the people who depend on the lake. So much work is being done by the multinational joint task force with the Nigeria military to secure that area.
“Much as we feel it is very important that this lake doesn’t go into extent, for that reason we have step up our diplomacy and advocacy even some technical planning and study proposed interbreeding transfer from the Congo basin into the Lake-Chad as one option that we think can solve the problem because the Congo basin has a lot of water resources and its all draining into Atlantic ocean.
“We are hoping on that, we have done the feasibility study, completed and adopted by the lak-chad basin commission 2012, we have gone a step further to complete that study which is been done by a Chinese company.
Adamu, noted that the interbreeding transfer may not be the only solutions there might be other cheaper ideas, adding that it’s a huge project “2400km of water transfer require a lot of years in study and design before implementation; we are not looking at something that will be done in 50 years.
“Its work in progress and I can assure you that we have committed all the member countries of the Lake-Chad basin to save the Lake-Chad.
Earlier, the Minister said AMCOW has provided needed platform for African to being to address their water and sanitation challenges
He noted that African state stand a good chance of meeting goal 6 of the sustainable development goals (SDG) through the implementation of Africa water vision of 2025.
On the funding of AMCOW, Executive Secretary, AMCOW, Dr. Canisius Kanangire, said the institution is funded through two major sources, contributions by member states and development partners.
Kanangire said, “For us we have a low of collection from the country contributions by member state. What we are saying is the political willingness of member society state to support the organization we have created and to increase the level of ownership not only at political level but also in finance.
“The second is the contribution which every year is increasing because of the commitment of ministers , favouring factor is the level of ministers in charge of those contribution, we are hopeful that the contributions continues to increase to a level where we can make hundred per cent contribution.
He said, that the contributions is done base on solidarity that members’ country cannot be sanctioned.
The second source according to him, is by development partners, “we have partners who have been with us since the creation of the institution in 2002 and they are continuing and we are getting new funding coming on board
AMCOW is an intergovernmental organization, founded by African Union since 2002, since the inception, AMCOW has been working actively to promote cooperation and security in managing the continents water supply, water resources and promoting effective sanitation practices.
