The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) Groundwater Project Holds its Third Steering Committee Meeting

The NBI Groundwater Project, which is worth USD$30 million and has a project life cycle of five years (2020-2025) marked an important milestone on 30th November 2022, when it held its third Project Steering Committee Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

With funding from the Global Environmental  Facility (GEF) channeled through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), this project aims at strengthening current mutual understanding on groundwater flow, recharge mechanisms, policies and management systems as well as community engagement and sustainable development plans for the effective utilization and protection of groundwater from over abstraction, depletion, and pollution.

The Project Steering Committee is responsible for arriving at management decisions through consensus, including recommendations for UNDP/Implementing Partner approval of project plans and revisions as well as addressing any project-level grievances. The Steering Committee is composed of a Project Management Unit at the NBI Secretariat; a task team at two of NBI’s Subsidiary Action Programme Offices (Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office and the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Programme); a national focal point institution in each of the seven participating NBI countries; and local-level government authorities in each participating NBI country.

The Steering Committee Meeting is an important milestone in the project life cycle since it is an opportunity to present the progress achieved in 2022, share the expected deliverables for the 2023 Financial Year, and also discuss challenges, opportunities, and possible solutions in the implementation of the various project components.

The Steering Committee Meeting was preceded by a three-day Action Plans Inception Workshop, which took place from 27th to 29th November, also in Nairobi, Kenya.