AGRIC MINISTER VISITS FOOSHEGO DAM FOR A MAJOR GERMAN DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION PROJECT.

"We are so happy that our dam is finally repaired" says Amina Ousman from Fooshego village in northern Ghana. "When the dam broke after the heavy rains in September 2007 we called the government to repair it. The German Ambassador came to tell us that there was a project coming to repair our dam. Funny enough, the first person to come was Anthony Dzatse, a sociologist and not an engineer." Anthony is working for the German Development Cooperation Dam Rehabilitation Program in Tamale, financed under a food aid project by the German Government in 2008 with 900.000 Euro. He organized the people before the work could be launched. Fred Machein, water engineer and project of the German Development Service (DED), started afterwards with assessing the damage and planning the repair work.
The organization did not follow the traditional rules of food for work. The people had two conditions: they only wanted maize and they wanted every family to participate, with changing workers. From May to December 2008 15000 people of which 61% were women shared 65000 workdays. Remuneration was about 2 € per day paid in maize according to the purchasing price.
The technology transfer by the project was simple: There were no machines used, only manual labour, even for compaction of the material. Vetiver grass was planted to stabilize the dams; in a second phase the villagers will be informed how to protect the whole catchment area to prevent siltation of the water bodies. Two simple arch bridges were built with advice of a Rwandan engineer to facilitate transportation of agricultural produce to the market.
The project has so far worked on 19 dam sites belonging to 64 communities with a total population of 76000 people who can benefit again from the water throughout the year. The water is used for drinking, other domestic purposes, livestock, fishing, and gardening and thus allows the people to stay in their villages and perform economic activities throughout the year.
By the end of the program in April 2009 the project will have reached about 200.000 people around 35 sites. Amina was talking about "our" dam; this is the most important outcome of the dam rehabilitation program in Northern Ghana. The beneficiary communities understand that they own the dams and are responsible for repair and maintenance. Salamatou Ali adds "when the dam was broken, we had to walk three hours to reach the water, now it is ten minutes".
The Market Oriented Agriculture Programme of the German Development Cooperation under its fisheries value chain will continue to organize the villagers to build sustainable production units based on these water bodies.

SOURCE:GERMAN EMBASSY