By Goth Mohamed Goth
H.E President Ahmed Mohamed Mahmoud Silanyo has meet with top African Development Bank representatives led by two AFiD directors and which includes engineers and other experts who have being touring the country to assess and evaluate the water needs of the country.
AFiD official speaking during the press conference moments after emerging from the meeting with President Silanyo said, “During our stay here during the few days we have being able to work closely and consistent manner to explore opportunities for providing support for the water sector, so this is not the end of it another mission will be coming soon and I hope within the coming few months the African Development Bank will have a full presence in the ground.
The Visiting African Development Bank officials have in the few past days visited several sites to inspected ongoing work meant to improve water infrastructure funded by the bank as part of the Building Resilience to Water Stress in Somaliland project held a series of meetings and consultation with the government so as to figure out how to precede in future engagements and since Somaliland has a far better track record of political stability and peaceful democracy were development can thrive.
The project aims at addressing the identified need for a comprehensive plan for integrated water resources management and development in Somaliland, which will contribute to on-going efforts to create water security and drought resilience, recover from the impacts of the drought, improve livelihoods and support economic recovery. The main beneficiaries will be the approximately 3.5 million urban and rural people living in Somaliland, including the approximately two million nomadic pastoralists and their 18-20 million livestock.
The overall objective of the project is to improve the integrated management of water resources and catalyse investments to meet all types of water needs. In order to achieve this objective the project will have four main components: (i) preparation of an integrated water resources management plan; (ii) preparation of an investment plan comprising projects and programmes for financing; (iii) design and implementation of priority rehabilitation works; and (iv) provision of sector support and capacity building.
The corresponding medium term outcomes are: (i) financing mobilised to implement the planned downstream investments; and (ii) strong functioning water institutions able to sustainably manage water resources in accordance with the IWRM Plan
