Tunisia, with an average water consumption of about400 m3 per capita per year, is below the water stress threshold which is set at 500 m3 per capita per year, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI). Tunisia has been experiencing “severe drought” since2016. So, says the African Development Bank (AfDB) in a reported dated, August 20 on Tunisia’s Water Strategy 2050.
The project is financed by the AfDB. First, a €1.345 million grant from the African Development Bank’s African Water Facility. Then €0.9 million from KFW; and finally €0.281 million from GIZ to finance a study entitled ‘WATER 2050’,” the report says.
All of them, including the Tunisian Water Observatory, are calling for a state of water emergency to be declared in Tunisia. However, Tunisia has had a strategy in place long before COVID-19, validated by major donors such as the AfDB and Germany’s KfW, for which funding is said to be ready, but it is dragging its feet on implementing this ‘Water Strategy 2050’.
A €23 billion action plan
The objective is to Tunisia’s Water Strategy 20250 is to contribute to the country’s socio-economic development by ensuring access to water resources in an efficient, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable manner by 2050 through an integrated water resources management approach. An action plan up to 2050, costing around €23 billion, has been developed to implement it,” the AfDB adds.
The WATER 2050 project is fully in line with the spirit of the Tunisian Constitution of January 26, 2014 (has since been replaced by a new Constitution in 2022), which enshrines the right to water and the obligation of the State and society to preserve and rationally manage this precious resource, the right to a healthy and balanced environment, decentralization, generalization, organization and strengthening of the powers of elected local authorities.
This project, which comes at a crucial time for the country, will provide Tunisia with a water sector planning tool until 2050. The study, which comprises more than 4,000 pages and is based on modeling carried out over the last 30 years, provides various scenarios, along with priority projects and budgets. It is an essential tool for the planning of investments in the sector. (It is also unique in Africa, as few countries have such a detailed strategy).
KfW completes feasibility studies for new dams
According to the same report, the strategy will make it possible to prepare a large number of structuring projects for Tunisia, worth an estimated €20 billion between now and 2050.
A number of firm commitments have already been made to support the implementation of the strategy: The AfDB recently approved an €82 million loan for a project to improve the quality of treated water for reuse, Tunisia has requested €500 million from the World Bank for the transfer of treated water to strengthen agricultural perimeters in the centre and south of the country, the AFD will finance REUSE projects (studies have been completed) for amounts yet to be determined, the KfW is currently completing feasibility studies for raw water transfer projects and dam reinforcement projects (creation of new dams, raising of existing dams), etc.
The report goes on to say that “the Bank will therefore support the government in implementing the priority actions of the “Water 2050” Strategy Action Plan.
Demand-driven water management among the strategy’s objectives
According to the AfDB report, the objectives of Tunisia’s ‘Water Strategy 2050’ are, firstly, to preserve and protect water resources for future generations; to make rational use of all available water resources in an integrated management approach, taking into account the constraints associated with climate change; to move towards demand-led water management; to make the best use of water for productive and resilient agriculture that meets the strategic imperatives of water security and food safety; and to promote the use of renewable energies. But also to mobilize users and the various stakeholders (Editor’s note: this requires a different type of communication between SONEDE users, which does not exist and is limited to announcing water cuts). But there is also a need to improve knowledge and build capacity to design and implement coherent interventions.
AfDB points to the reasons for the delay
We can consider that the development objective has been achieved as Tunisia has a vision, a strategy and action scenarios to ensure sustainable access to water by 2050. In total, more than 100 workshops were held during the process of developing the strategy. This process also took a long time, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was complicated to bring stakeholders together and validate the different stages of the study. In fact, this is the main lesson we can draw from the design: a significant underestimation of the time needed for each phase of the project,” the AfDB experts say.
On the causes of delays in the implementation of this strategy, the AfDB report cites “for example, and based on experience, the initial recruitment of consulting firms [which] always takes longer than expected.
The validation of the stages by the administration [which] also takes a long time. This validation requires several national and regional workshops with relatively long lead times’. The project was delayed considerably at the beginning, then because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which complicated the initially planned meetings and validation sessions. In the end, the project took 7 years to complete, 4 years longer than planned,’ summarizes the report.
