Lake Chad replenishment project

The Lake Chad replenishment project is a proposed major water diversion scheme that would involve damming the right tributaries of the Congo river, channeling some of the water to Lake Chad through a navigable canal.[1] [2]

Transaqua (in red).

The canal, named Transaqua, was proposed by a team of engineers of the firm Bonifica,[3][4] led by Dr. Marcello Vichi,[5] and would generate hydro-electricity at several points along its length. These would power new industrial townships, while the canal would replenish the lake.[6] The irrigation scheme for a 2,400 km canal from the Congo Basin to the lake, which has been steadily shrinking, was considered unlikely to materialize as late as 2005.[7]

The members of the Lake Chad Basin International Commission are Chad, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger. Concerned by shrinkage of the lake's area from 20,000 square kilometres (7,700 sq mi) in 1972 to 2,000 square kilometres (770 sq mi) in 2002, they met in January 2002 to discuss the project. Both the ADB and the Islamic Development Bank expressed interest in the project. However, the member states of the Congo-Ubangi-Sangha Basin International Commission, Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic expressed concern that the project would reduce the energy potential of the Inga hydroelectric dam, would affect navigation on the Ubangi and Congo rivers and would reduce fish catches on these rivers.[8]

These objections overlook the fact that only 5-8% of the water would be diverted, while the rest 92-95% would not only reach Inga, but would produce electricity twice, first at the Transaqua dams and eventually at Inga.

Initially judged as too ambitious, Transaqua was rejected in favor of a smaller water-transfer scheme from the Ubangui, the biggest tributary of the Congo river and the Canadian firm CIMA was commissioned a feasibility study. The Lake Chad Basin Commission, however, judged the project, which involved pumping water upwards from the Ubangui river, was not sufficient to replenish Lake Chad and adopted Transaqua as the "only feasible" project at the International Conference on Lake Chad, on Feb. 26-28, 2018.[9] [10]

Following the ICLC, representatives of the LCBC and the Italian government signed a MoU for initial funding for the Transaqua feasibility study on Oct. 16, 2018.[11]

On Dec. 16, 2019, an amendment introduced by Italian Sen. Tony Iwobi to the 2021 Italian budget law included a financing of 1.5 million Euro for the feasibility study.[12]

On Nov. 13, 2020, Former Italian Prime Minister, former EU Commission chief and former UN Special Envoy for the Sahel Romano Prodi stated that the populations around Lake Chad could not wait any longer and called for the EU, the UNO, the Organization for African Unity and China to join hands to finance and build Transaqua.[13]

A large merit for the success of Transaqua has been attributed to activists from the LaRouche movement.[14] [15]