World Rivers Review: Volume 13, Number 1
This past September, an official think-tank called Le Groupe de Réflexion Stratég ique (Strategic Planning Group) publicly released a report critical of the large dam projects in the Senegal River Valley. The group’s report prompted a local farmers’ group to demand the re-establishment of natural river flooding upon which their agricultural systems depend and which the dams had effectively ended.
As described in a story in the October 1997 issue of World Rivers Review, the Manantali and Diama Dams have done serious harm to local fishing and farming communities by stopping the natural flood regime and introducing water-borne diseases. The government, with help from the World Bank, is now adapting the Manantali Dam to produce power – a plan that will bring little relief to those harmed by the cessation of natural flooding. The river’s flooding has for centuries supported a thriving small-scale agricultural society, which now lies in tatters.
The Strategic Planning Group, which was commissioned by the Senegal Ministry of Agriculture and the World Bank to rethink Senegal’s agricultural policy, released its highly critical report and action plan at a public hearing. The result was great consternation in government circles associated with the project. A local newspaper reported that the Government “deplored the group’s conclusions,” saying it did not adequately or objectively look at the government’s planning of agricultural systems. But critics say the dams have failed to bring promised results in irrigated agriculture, and that the addition of the power supply to Manantali could even make things worse by reducing the amount of water available for artificial flooding.
The group’s study was conducted by Adrian Adams, who has lived and worked in Senegal for the past 20 years. Adams’ report described the effects of irrigation schemes on farming communities both before and after the dams were built, highlighted by case studies of three villages. The report recommended that the dams be operated to promote flood-recession farming and renewal of the river’s fish stocks as well as irrigated farming and electricity. In response to the report’s recommendations, a Valley-wide farmer’s union called Mouvement des Acteurs de la Vallée (MAV) drafted its own statement to be presented at the September public hearing. MAV says its “Document Paysan” describes the concerns of a majority of the Valley’s farmers and herders who have been adversely affected by the dam projects.
At the public hearing, according to the newspaper Sud Quotidien (Oct. 1, 1997), “farmers aggressively questioned the development project and dams built in the Senegal Valley which have led to their current distress.” The newspaper said the farmers questioned the validity of the water projects and “asked if these costly dams should be destroyed or at least the agricultural policies be changed.”
MAV’s demands, presented at the public hearing, include the following:
- The re-establishment of regular floods favoring agriculture, herding and fishing;
- The reorganization of irrigated agriculture to be more accessible to more farmers;
- Establishment of adequate health regulations to address pollution and diseases brought on by the dams and their associated developments;
- Participation of local populations in all future decisions about development, especially those which concern the use of the river’s water, the politics of development, and changes in national law on issues such as land tenure and land redistribution. This participation should be not only at the rural community level but also at regional and national levels.
Other groups voiced concerns and questions about the project at regional stakeholder meetings held in the region in mid-November, sponsored by Organisation Pour La Mise en Valeur du Fleuve Senegal (OMVS), the tri-nation parastatal with overall responsibility for the dam. At those meetings, representatives from a coalition of five nongovernmental organizations proposed seven measures to solve some of the project’s biggest problems, including adopting an ecosystem approach to water management, implementing measures to ensure respect for the rights of existing and vulnerable users, and adopting health goals as part of the water management plan.
Water Management Being Studied
The project has been criticized for allowing power production plans to proceed before a water-management plan is in place. Among other things, good water management practices can help control the serious health problems brought on by the dam. ORSTOM, a French consulting firm, is expected to develop a further analysis of water management issues in early 1998, while the World Bank is slated to develop an analysis of costs and benefits of water management options.
The Bank’s analysis will certainly bear close watching. Extensive studies have documented the greater productivity of traditional flood recession farming cycles compared to large-scale irrigation. Bank documents prepared for Board review of the project found that the value of the annual flood – measured in terms of traditional production and associated social and environmental benefits – exceeded the value of electric production as well. Notwithstanding these findings, the rationale for the dam – and water management – continues to be framed in terms of electricity production, irrigation and navigation. Goals such as solving health problems and restoring traditional agriculture have been relegated to “mitigation goals” to be achieved “as much as possible.”
The adaptation of Manantali Dam to produce power is expected to cost US$445 million. The project garnered a $38 million loan from the World Bank in 1997, and is expected to be presented to the Board of the African Development Bank (AfDB) for review in early 1998. AfDB is considering loaning $25.9 million for the project. Despite the progress with funding the project, fundamental questions remain, including the extent of historic and future flood recession agriculture in the valley, and the basis for project documents’ optimistic assumptions about regional rainfall. The Bank’s analysis of the Manantali project is predicated on a rainfall data series (1950-1993) that knowledgeable experts consider unrepresentative of the region and unduly optimistic, wholly apart from the effects of global climate change. Lower rainfall volumes since 1970 are considered more representative.
The World Bank’s use of optimistic assumptions to justify projects has been criticized in numerous internal and external analyses, yet the problem persists. In the case of Manantali, the consequences for farmers could be disastrous. For example, if the dam were operated mainly for power and if drier conditions prevailed, only 11,000 hectares (ha) could be farmed, compared to a Bank estimate of 64,000 ha based on an assumption that wetter conditions would prevail. While the Bank analysis factored the “risk” of lower rainfall into its economic analysis for the power operator, it did not use the more realistic data as the basis of its economic or social and environmental mitigation analyses.