- The agricultural potential is very good and rainfall levels are relatively high and stable while the Lake Victoria Kenya Tourism Circuit (LVKTC) has enormous potential as a tourist destination.
- Key areas of potential include nature and wildlife; agro-tourism; water sports among other cultural heritage activities.
Will Kenya’s Cabinet approval for the implementation of the Angololo water resources development project on the Kenya/Uganda border change the fortunes in the region’s effort to boost agricultural productivity, employment creation, income generation, enhance access to clean domestic water and generation of hydroelectric power in the Lake Victoria basin? Hopefully.
In addition to other challenges in the area including dwindling water sources, water pollution, pressures on ecosystems, and climate challenges, the poverty levels are concerning. Why would a region so endowed with such vast resources remain suffering?
The project supported by Kenya and Uganda governments jointly with financiers in collaboration with the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program (NELSAP)/Sio Malaba Malakisi (SMM) River Basin Management project comes at a time when the region is facing daunting challenges of food security, floods, destruction of wetlands and related adverse effects of climate change, and hopefully, the intended modernized and irrigated agriculture will assist in community adaptation.
The region is strategically placed as a gateway to Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Great Lakes Region which are potential markets for goods and services produced here.
The Lake Basin Region also has access to all developed transportation routes into the COMESA and SADC regions. In addition, the Lake basin shares natural resources like Lake Victoria, rivers, tourists’ destination sites, and environmental and climatic conditions among others.
The agricultural potential is very good and rainfall levels are relatively high and stable while the Lake Victoria Kenya Tourism Circuit (LVKTC) has enormous potential as a tourist destination.
Key areas of potential include nature and wildlife; agro-tourism; water sports among other cultural heritage activities.
Several financial institutions including banks, microfinance, Saccos and lending institutions have set up a base in the region, and what is only needed to spur economic growth and investments is to enhance access to appropriate business advisory services.
The Cabinet sitting on February 14, 2024, giving the nod to the project is a big opportunity for more than 300,000 residents in the region who will benefit through the 4000 hectares of land to put under irrigated agriculture, 270,000 to access clean domestic water and the access to 1.3 MW of Hydro Electric power for the residents.
More specifically, the project benefits include regulation of the flow of water in the Malaba River, reducing floods downstream and benefitting the operation of future dams downstream of the Angololo dam, improvement in health, hygiene, nutrition, and sanitation because of access to clean drinking water, fishing and fish farming in the reservoir and irrigation agriculture.
In addition, the project will foster transboundary cooperation in the joint development and management of water resources between Kenya and Uganda.
The project supported by the African Development Bank-NEPAD-IPPF Special Fund the Governments of Kenya and Uganda will benefit 300,000 people from Tororo, Namisindwa and Manafwa Districts of Uganda and Busia County in Kenya by increasing the land under irrigation and hosting a mini hydropower plant that will support powering the region.
Kenyan Engineer Dr Isaac Alukwe, the Regional Coordinator of the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program (NELSAP_CU) of the Nile Basin Initiative is leading the project.
The success of such transboundary projects is a testimony to the growing realization globally that joint management of shared resources is a best practice in not only solving cross-border conflicts and tensions, as have been witnessed by countries sharing the Rive Nile but enhancing peaceful co-existence and sustainable management of such natural resources.
The world has recorded so many conflicts related to water, that leaders from the 10 countries sharing the river Nile have made bold steps to review the River Nile Agreement to ease the tensions in the region over its waters and create equitable use and benefits by residents.
The review of the current Nile Agreement including calls for the Establishment of the Nile Basin Commission lies well in the larger African movements towards solving cross-border conflicts as seen through the Niamey Convention is in line with the agreement that was established by the Agenda 2063 under the aspiration of a continent of seamless borders, and management of cross-border resources through dialogue.
It complies with the actions highlighted in the road map, which consists of implementing joint cross-border investments to exploit shared natural resources and silence the guns by 2020, through the enhancement of dialogue-centred conflict prevention and resolution, to make peace a reality for all people.