Tunis, located in North Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea and the countries of Libya and Algeria, is composed of four main topographic regions. The climate ranges from humid to semi-arid or even arid in the desert regions. A part from the fact that the country suffers from water scarcity, there is another issue that needs to be taken serisouly: wastewater is discharged in the Gulf of Tunis. This procedure is extremly harmful for the marine ecosystem and is a considerable waste of water. The World Bank has approved a new project, this year, that will support the country’s development program with a central focus on the Northern Tunis Wastewater Project in collaboration with another project entitled Natural Resource Management Project. These two projects partly funded by the World Bank in parntnership with the local government have the scope of improving the country’s agricultural sector, environment and water resources.
“The potential water resources of the country are estimated at 4,670 million m3/year. The total volume that can be accessed is 3,100 million m3/year. The annual per capita water availability in Tunisia is about 489 m3, which is below the threshold for water scarcity (1,000 m3/year). Water resources are unevenly distributed across the country” (Source: http://www.idrc.ca/uploads/user-S/11470949291PhD_thesis__Final__of_Maher_Abu-Madi_22_June_2004.pdf). Water scarcity becomes heavily problematic for areas of the country that have an economy concentrated on agriculture.
On June 17, The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved the Northern Tunis Wastewater Project for US$ 8.03 million. The goal of the project is “to reduce the environmental impact of treated wastewater dischared into the Gulf of Tunis by building a submarine outfall” (Source: http://www.emwis.org/thematicdirs/news/tunisia-northern-tunis-wastewater-project).This project also hopes to ameliorate the quality of treated wastewater so it can later be reused for agriculture.The project is devided in three parts, the first component consists in the Transfer of the Treated Wastewater (TWW) with the hopes to augment the quantity of water being reused for agriculture. The treated wasterwater will need to be transfered from its current discharge point to a storage basin from where it will me treated and made available from agriculture purposes. The second branch of this initiative consists is “the improvement of the discharge of the remaining TWW in the Mediterranean Sea” (Source: http://www.emwis.org/thematicdirs/news/tunisia-northern-tunis-wastewater-project). Finally, the last component of this project is the monitoring of alla ctivities in order to later implement “capacity strenghtening”. This part of the project is crucial to the long-term success of this initative insofar it is installs a mechanism of coordination amongst all the various agencies working together and establishes the much needed water quality monitoring systems in order to be able to have a report and to trace the evolution of the process. This project is mostly financed by”a World Bank loan of US$52 million and a GEF grant of US$8.03 million. The Tunisian Government is contributing about US$ 8.6 million” (Source: http://en.greenplanet.net/lifestyle/eco-sustainability/1699-tunisia-two-new-projects-for-water-and-environment.html).
The Natural Resource Management Project focuses its actions on the rural environmental sector; the goal is to ameliorate the living conditions of the local communities, to develop and implement more efficient infrastrctures and better services without forgetting the importance of encouraging income-generated activities. Another facet of this project is to try to limit the damages produced by soil degradation in specific areas of the country. This development initiative will be launched in collaboration with the local commissioners for agricultural development (CRDA). The success of this project depends on the capacity for all organisations to cooperate but most importantly coordinate their efforts in order to maximise ressources and capabilities.
Agriculture contributes substantially to the economy of Tunis and the water pollution is directly participating to the issue of water scarcity. In partnership with the local government, last month, the World Bank has agree to give a US$52 million loan in order to finance the Northern Tunis Wastewater Project. This initiative will not only focus on ameliorating the quality of water and work of rendering wastewater reusable for agriculral puporses; but will also launch a series of initatives for long-term development sustainability on the territory.
