Dateline Dispatches: Around the World in Ten Days
DAY SIX Wednesday, 22 November 2000

Dakar

DAKAR, SENEGAL: One river, three arid nations

Jamie Skinner and Madiodio Niasse of the WCD Secretariat

The potential for conflict over how to use the waters of the Senegal River has surfaced before, leading some to predict a future filled with "Water Wars."

But just as some rivers cross invisible borders without regard to country, class, politics or religion, the WCD's West Africa briefing focused on how all interests could use the Report to start working together within and between nations.

The West Africa WCD presentation, like the one which gave birth to WCD four years earlier in Gland, was organised by IUCN and the World Bank acting in partnership.

Around 65 people attended from all sectors in Dakar and the Senegal River valley.

Delegates at the Dakar briefing

Clearly, the principal interest was on the Manatali Dam and the management of the Senegal River which by nature of its resource value, remains a perennial subject for discussion.

The issues raised centred on the degree to which the report would assist in the institutional frameworks needed to manage such a complex system shared by three countries through improved equity, participation, and cooperation between riverine communities.

There was also a desire to see a process of translating the report and then regionalising it specifically for the West African context.