Construction of Ang’ololo Water Resources Development Project in Kenya on track. The US$ 62M regional Transboundary water initiative is one of the priority projects under the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program (NELSAP), an investment program of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), and it is a part of the Sio-Malaba-Malakisi Transboundary Integrated Water Resources Management and Development Programme.
Works involve construction of a 40-meter high dam with a reservoir capacity to hold approximately 43 million cubic meters at Kamachar in Moding location and a water storage reservoir. Ang’ololo Water Resources Development Project also includes the development of sanitation systems, as well as a system for flow regulation to control floods and manage drought situations.
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Project’s benefit
Upon completion, these facilities will help supply drinking water to over 20,000 people in both countries, and irrigation water enough to irrigate approximately 1,180 hectares of land in Kenya and 2,120 hectares in Uganda, through water supply systems that will be developed as part of the project. The dam, will also facilitate the production of 1.75 megawatts of electricity that will be consumed locally.
The principal objective of the Ang’ololo Water Resources Development Project is to alleviate poverty in the project area by transforming the existing subsistence farming into large-scale commercial farming of irrigated lands producing principally high-value horticultural crops and improving fisheries development.
The project also seeks to increase adaptation to climate change, reverse environmental degradation, improve water supply and sanitation, strengthen transboundary cooperation and promote agro-processing as well as crop and livestock production.