Mali announces €2.2 billion to save Africa’s third-longest river

The Malian government has launched a national plan worth approximately €2.2 billion to save Africa’s third-longest river, currently facing threats such as pollution, silting, dredging and other illegal servitude occupations.

The Niger River, also known as Djoliba in the Mandingue language, is a transboundary river in West Africa shared by five other countries, namely Sierra Leone, Guinea, Niger, Benin and Nigeria.

According to the Malian government, the National Program for the Safeguarding of the Niger River (PNS-FN) aims to gather all actions that contribute to maintaining the Niger River in its economic, environmental, social and mobility functions, through the improvement of its navigability; the development of its watersheds; the protection of its banks against degradation; the sanities of the beds of its tributaries; the recovery and development of its banks at the level of large agglomeration.

“Like Mali, the other countries crossed by the Niger River must mobilize to save this jewel to the great delight of the people living along the Niger River who were the first victims of the reduction of the waters of Africa’s third river,” said Moussa Diamoye, the Deputy Director General of the Niger River Basin Agency (ABFN).

The first project of the PNS-FN consists in ridding the river of invasive aquatic plants, called hyacinths; a job entrusted to the Malian Seydou Djiré, a specialist in river development. The PNS-FN, will cost nearly 2.2 billion euros in total.