International development of the Senegal River

Abstract

This paper looks at the main political factors that were instrumental in design and implementation of the Diama and Manantali dams on the Senegal River. The rationale for making use of the valuable international resource is undermined by the political concessions, compromises, and accommodation the basin states and the donors who finance the projects need to make to sustain international cooperation among the three participating basin states of Mali, Mauritania and Senegal. At best there is an over-investment in physical works and at worst the dam projects are unnecessary at this time and will be an economic and social disaster. Planning of the projects was backwards in that it was oriented towards justifying a political decision made as long ago as 1962. While the river program is uneconomic and a number of the funding agencies were dissatisfied with parts or even all of it, the basin states, nevertheless, succeeded in obtaining the necessary concessionary finance by playing one donor off against another, with limited effect by controlling the type of technical information produced, and more successfully by taking political initiatives to circumvent the technical funding process and exploiting the political sympathies of the donor country political leaders. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.