Sahel: FAO to build one million water storage tanks

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) plans to build one million water tanks in Senegal, Niger and Burkina Faso to address the water deficit experienced by these Sahel nations.
Water is becoming increasingly scarce in Sahel countries, which often already suffer from a structural shortage of water infrastructure.

FAO’s initiative will provide some 20,000 women with water. That is 10,000 women in Senegal, 5,000 in Niger and 5,000 in Burkina Faso.

According to FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, the main objective of the program is to “promote and facilitate the establishment of rainwater harvesting and storage facilities for vulnerable communities”.

Thanks to this strategy of the UN agency, the inhabitants of the Sahel will be able to obtain drinking water, on the one hand, and have a solution to strengthen their family agricultural production and their resilience to climate change, on the other, da Silva explained.

The “One Million Tanks for the Sahel” project will enable people to collect and store water during the rainy season (June to October) for use in the dry season (November to May).

The program also plans to provide them with small to medium-scale training in good water management techniques.

According to UNICEF estimations, 300,000 children under 5 die every year in the Sahel from malnutrition. The poor quality of water is aggravating the health condition of these populations.