Case Study for 2006 HDR THE SENEGAL RIVER CASE Olli Varis 1 , Virpi Stucki 1 & Sylvie Fraboulet-Jussila 2 1 Water Resources Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, P. O. Box: 5200, FIN- 02015 HUT, Finland. olli.varis@hut.fi 2 Soil & Water Ltd., PO Box 50, 01621 Vantaa, Finland. Introduction This case study documents the cumbersome history of introducing commercial agriculture to the basin of the Senegal River, West Africa. This basin has been subjected to severe famines and an array of other, partly related development malaises during the past fifty years. The case study leans principally on the following documents: Varis & Fraboulet-Jussila (2002), Varis & Lahtela (2002) and Lahtela (2002, 2003). The Senegal River Senegal River is a 1,800 km long lifeline in the Sahel shared by four nations: Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal. The rainy uplands of Guinea are the source of a major part of the river water. It is then conveyed through the lowlands, which become increasingly arid towards the mouth of the river. The river and the surrounding valley have supported its population variably through the centuries in the harsh and highly variable climatic conditions. The traditional livelihood methods and ways of using the river in cyclical matters have been the only possible way until the introduction of modern agriculture in 1950s to the valley. Through the history there has been a high frequency of dry climatic periods, which has forced people to leave the valley, causing mass starvation and conflict. The last few decades have seen an augmentation of various problems in this fragile valley. Severe droughts have hit the region, the population growth rate has been extreme, the economy has declined, food security has been unstable, and, consequently, there have been numerous mass migrations, mainly to the mushrooming cities such as Dakar, Bamako, Conakry and Nouakchott. Inconsistent plans and policy interventions Since the last five decades, the river has been seen as a means of enhancing the national economies of its member states. An attempt at food self-sufficiency, boosted by the problem of feeding the growing urban population and the possibility of future droughts, are the major driving forces of some national and international organisations. Large-scale schemes for modernizing agriculture, hydropower generation, and enabling navigation are listed as the major means of supporting such attempts. So far the success of these has been flimsy and mostly negative (Varis & Fraboulet-Jussila 2002, Varis & Lahtela 2002, Lahtela 2002, 2003 and Niasse et al. 2004). After gaining independence Guinea gained its independence from France in 1958, and the other three riparian countries in 1960. The modernization of the economy of the hitherto traditional African livelihoods and economy of the Senegal valley had started a decade earlier with the introduction of irrigated rice to the farmers. This was not successful due to various reasons. Obviously the climatic and other natural conditions were not suitable and the economic, social and institutional structures were not suited to commercial rice farming at that time. The modern institutions started to see daylight after the independence. In the case of Senegal, the key institution has ever since been the State Development Corporation SAED (Société d’Exploitation des Terres du Delta du 1