AfDB Revamps Gashua Irrigation, Desilts Challawa Dam For Enhanced Food Production

The African Development Bank (AfDB) in collaboration with the Hadejia-Jama’are-Komadugu-Yobe Trust Fund is intensifying efforts to revamp the Gashua irrigation scheme in give and desilt Challawa Gorge dam in Kano to enhance food security in the country.

To this end, a stakeholders workshop ended yesterday in Bauchi State with the objective of ensuring that stakeholders of the Hadejia-Jama’are and Komadugu-Yobe basin are properly aware and briefed about the project the Trustfund implementing agencies are handling.

Fielding questions from reporters shortly after the workshop, the executive secretary of the Hadejia-Jama’are and Komadugu-Yobe Basin Trust Fund, Professor Hassan Haruna said that the project is about expanding and rehabilitating Gashua Irrigation Scheme, and implementing certain measures to protect ‘decatchment’ of Challawa Gorge dam from siltation.

“We have been working with the support of the African Development Bank to design this project and to have consultations with the concerned stakeholders, and come up with financing arrangements for implementing whatever has been designed”, the basin executive secretary said.

He recalled that the project has been on since 2019 and a point reached with remaining financial agreement to be signed, as already approved by the AfDB for subsequent implementation, which involve all the stakeholders in one way or the other.

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Professor Haruna gave the implementing agencies as the Hadejia-Jama’are and Komadugu-Yobe Trust Fund, the Chad Basin Development Authority and the Hadejia-Jama’are Basin Development Authority, hence the workshop for stakeholders to know about the hitch-ups on the project which agreement ought to have been signed last November, 2023.

The executive secretary who recalled that the Gashua Irrigation Scheme collapsed in the 90s, noted that with the implementation of the project, there will be more farming and more farmers will be engaged in more food production, as it will also protect the Challawa Gorge dam from silting up, from the silts coming upstream filling up the dam.

“We need to improve productivity per unit area in order to accommodate more, as we also have to think outside box to employ latest technology to produce more per unit area,” he stated.