The fourth session of the Steering Committee of the NB-ITTAS project took place on April 18 and 19, 2024, in Conakry, Guinea, under the Presidency of the Niger Basin Authority (NBA) and the OSS, which provided the vice-presidency. The event was under the High Patronage of the Minister of Energy, Hydraulics, and Hydrocarbons of Guinea, represented by Mrs. Nima BAH, Chief of Staff of the Ministry. This meeting marked a significant milestone with the approval of the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) concerning the groundwater of the Iullemeden-Taoudéni/Tanezrouft Aquifer System (ITTAS) by the members of the Steering Committee, and also resulted in authorization to formulate the Strategic Action Program (SAP) for the year 2024.
The TDA/SAP process (Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis/Strategic Action Program) process helps harness all stakeholders' skills in countries sharing water resources and jointly agree on issues and potential solutions through inclusive work and the use of previous basin experiences that have adopted the ADT/PAS approach. It aims to strategically evaluate and plan long-term transboundary actions for the conservation and effective management of transboundary basins (rivers, lakes, groundwater, and large marine ecosystems - LME).
It allows for the identification of common challenges, the definition of shared objectives, and the coordination of efforts among stakeholders from different countries involved. It is within the framework of the NB-ITTAS project (Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria) that the Iullemeden-Taoudéni/Tanezrouft Aquifer System - ITTAS now joins the four aquifer systems benefiting from the TDA/SAP process out of the 468 transboundary aquifer systems worldwide, including 106 in Africa.