Yahoo News 24 Jun 08;
International donors have pledged almost one billion euros to save Africa's Niger river, which runs across 4,200-kilometres (2,600-miles), a source said Tuesday.
At a donors conference in the Niger capital, Niamey, about 907 million euros (1.4 billion dollars) was raised with pledges from the World Bank (500 million euros), France (250 million) and the Islamic Development Bank (100 million) comprising the lion's share.
The West African Development Bank, the European Union, the United Nations' culture agency UNESCO, Germany, Canada and West Africa's Economic and Monetary Union are the other main donors.
The money will allow the Niger Basin Authority (ABN), an intergovernmental body grouping the countries irrigated by Africa's third-longest river, to begin work on the first phase in a 5.5 billion-euro, 20-year rescue plan adopted in April.
An initial five-year project will focus on two main dams -- one in Niger and the other in Mali -- as well as tree-planting, rehabilitating plains and removing silt from river bed.
Around 20 percent of the money is aimed at protecting natural resources and ecosystems.
Subsequent stages are not due to be completed until 2027.
The Niger river snakes through Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria, and is the lifeblood for 110 million people, covering an area of 2.1 million square kilometres (800,000 square miles), a third of west Africa's land mass.
A fall of up to 55 percent in the river's flow over the past 20 years, mainly due to climate change and growing populations, means drastic action is required to prevent it from ultimately running dry.
Seriously threatened by drought and silting, the additional pressure of industrial waste has spawned an explosion in the oxygen-stifling aquatic hyacinth plant which is strangling the water itself as well as fish stocks.
By 2025, the population throughout the Niger basin -- which also includes lands in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Chad -- is expected to double, based on three percent annual growth predicted by the ABN.
