France’s Development Agency will provide a 200 million euro ($217.7million) budgetary loan to Mauritius to finance an overhaul of the country’s water sector.
“Water resources management is a challenge that the Republic of Mauritius, like other small island states highly exposed to climate change, must take up,” said the island nation’s Finance Minister Renganaden Padayachy.
The loan relies on five pillars including a new water policy integrating development objectives and the Paris Climate accord, to improve services through short and medium term, and operational solutions to consolidate social and gender inclusion.
Mauritius relies on tourism and the export of manufactured goods ,and grapples with drought and water cuts ahead of the summer rains. In December 2022, the average capacity in reservoirs fell to a “critical level” of 35%, resulting in rationing of water to six hours per day in some regions, according to a statement published by the Central Water Authority.
“Water can be a lever for sustainable development, but it can also become a limiting factor for development,” Padayachy said in a speech delivered at the signing ceremony on Friday in Port Louis, the capital.
Financing from the French Development Agency adds to a $70 million loan from the Saudi Fund for Development for the construction of a dam in the southern part of the island nation.
Last year, the island of Mauritius received 4.105 trillion cubic meters of rain, a 8.7% increase from a year earlier. While ground water recharge accounted for 411 million cubic meters, 2.46 trillion cubic meters or 60% “went as surface runoff,” the data agency said in a June report.
Source& image courtesy: https://www.bloomberg.com
