Background

In many African countries, groundwater is of vital importance for the livelihood and health of the people, since it is the main water source for domestic, agricultural and industrial use. This assertion is particularly true in Sahelian countries where surface water bodies are either scarce or non-perennial. In West Africa, when the majority of rural population relies totally on groundwater for their drinking water using both hand-dug wells and boreholes, in many urban areas also there is a large scale of groundwater use by water supply networks to meet the demand for various purposes.

To address constraints that threaten groundwater resource sustainability, all West African countries have adopted IWRM principle as guidelines to their water policy. Most countries have undertaken first steps of the IWRM process; in major cases they have already formulated IWRM policy, elaborated laws and regulation texts. The matter is that groundwater is not well integrated into national water policy; likely due to its specificity (“invisible” part of water cycle), deficit of groundwater professionals in national water management bodies… The Groundwater Capacity Building Initiative Africa has highlighted in detail major constraints and Capacity Building needs, as expressed by professionals of the sector.

Within this framework a course has been held in Dakar in November, 19-23, 2007 with the support of BGR, Cap-Net and EU. It was implemented by the Country Water Partnership – Senegal (PNES) in collaboration with the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar. A similar course was recently implemented in Nigeria targeting its national water professionals. The success encountered with these events, and the expectations expressed by candidates and by attendees are real motivation to draw up a long term action plan that makes possible numerous water professionals to be capacitated in groundwater resources management within IWRM.

Objectives

The course aims to:

• To promote sustainable groundwater resources management within the framework of IWRM
• Basic understanding of GW processes and their interaction
• To make water professional aware of groundwater specificity
• To raise awareness of the importance of groundwater resources in Africa and the need for improved management
• To discuss the groundwater management issues and priorities for action to better integrate groundwater in national water policy
• To raise awareness on climate changes and variability and adaptation strategies through sustainable GW management
• To raise the importance of GW data monitoring with regard to integrated GW resources management

See French Brochure for more details.