Ghana - Burkina talk on Volta Basin resumes

Tenkodogo (Burkina Faso), June 2, GNA - Delegates from Ghana and Burkina Faso on Wednesday began what is officially referred to as the Third Joint Forum on the White Volta Basin at Tenkodogo near Ouagadougou.

It is a follow-up on the Second Joint Consultative Forum held in Bolgatanga on January 29 and 30, 2007 and has as its central objective the adoption of statutory regulations that would make the Trans-boundary Committee for the Management of the water resources of the White Volta Basin become operational.

The three-day conference, which is being organized by the Ouagadougou-based Project for Improving of Water Governance of the Volta Basin (PAGEV), also aims at building the capacity of participants on the concept of Integrated Water Resource Management and other strategies that would enhance conflict prevention and resolution. Also at the heart of the forum's deliberations, particularly for the Ghana side, was the issue of ascertaining the inflow of water both in terms of quality and quantity from Burkina Faso to Ghana. In attendance are over 80 participants from the two neighbouring countries, 30 of whom make up the Ghana delegation headed by the Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. Boniface Gambila.

Earlier in a welcome address, the Haut-Commissaire of Boulgou Province, Mr. Pierre Bicaba, underscored the importance of water to the two neighbouring countries and called on participants at the forum to focus on strategies that would make water resources of the Volta Basin a factor that would further strengthen the existing bonds of co-operation between Ghana and Burkina Faso.