Scientific and technical information and rural development : highlights of innovative practices : papers and posters' abstracts = Information scientifique et technique et développement rural : éclairages sur des pratiques innovantes : résumés des communications et des posters

The Niger River basin involves nine countries that depend on its water resources for agriculture, energy supply, drinking water, breeding and navigation needs. It has also a major environmental role in a very fragile area. Water availability in the basin is very variable and there is threat of tension between the States of the basin if water is not shared properly. It is therefore necessary that the States can converse and agree upon distribution of the available water resources with good equity. In this aim, the Niger Basin Authority (NBA) was created to allow permanent place for dialogue between States. However, a productive and equitable dialogue built on objective basis is necessary. The observatory of the NBA has been created for that purpose. The conception of this observatory is described. This observatory must not only work on the climate and hydrology data of the year butt also allow the sharing of knowledge so that every State would be at the same level of information to make suitable decisions. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the framework of the Echel-Eau project, supported a global diagnosis on water productivity according to the methodology initiated by the Global Challenge Programme "Water and food". This global diagnosis named "Basin Focal Project" leads in a knowledge database that will be implanted in NBA. The concept of th is base is described