The photo above is of a major dam above the Senegal River in Mali, North Africa, known as the Manantali. In 1993 Carl–Dieter Spranger, then Minister for Development Assistance for Germany, a country that had co-funded the project, called Manantali an "act of economic and environmental nonsense.” This is the story of how my partner and I played a role in assuring that U.S. foreign aid funds were withheld from the Manantali Dam.
The early to mid 1970s had brought drought, abject poverty and starvation to what is known as Sahelian Africa. The world development community responded with relief aid and sought longterm solutions to the region’s water problems. Two high-ranking USAID officials were awarded the Rockefeller Prize for an ambitious series of water-related engineering projects, among them the Manantali Dam on a tributary above the Senegal River. Strong momentum had built within the Ford Administration for a contribution of $36,000,000, for the dam and associated works.
In November 1975, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee directed my partner, John Chapman “Chips” Chester and me to visit a number of African countries and report on Peace Corps and USAID assistance programs in West Africa. Among specific assignments was to assess potential American participation in the construction of the Manantali and its downstream works.
Through our advanced research on the Manantali and associated “irrigated perimeters” proposed at Matam in Senegal, we found that USAID’s enthusiasm was not shared by all in government. Two relatively low-level specialists at the Federal Bureau of Reclamation had done a study that warned against letting politicians and technocrats dictate solutions. Such decisions, they wrote, “would meet the needs of everyone involved, except the people and cultures directly impacted….”
Keeping those ideas in mind, we visited Senegal, downriver from the proposed dam and site of the Matam project. A photo shows us with our vehicle and entourage furnished by USAID. Chips is far left; I am far right. Our first stop was San Louis, at the wide mouth of the Senegal River. The city is seen here in the distance across the bay. 
In San Louis, we stayed at the Hotel la Residence, shown here, and met with Sahelian officials, all of them enthusiastic for the projects, but fuzzy on details, including the fate of the 10,000 people estimated to be displaced from their ancestral lands.
The next several days were spent moving slowly but steadily up the Senegal River, a waterway that narrows significantly as one moves inland. We were driven to Matam, the proposed site of the irrigated perimeters and taken to a nearby irrigated plantation, shown here, where rice was being grown on land that earlier only cropped dry land millet for the local farmers.
Along the way we met a German agricultural engineer who had been brought in to assess the functionality of the irrigated perimeters. He told a story of disastrous consequences from creating the dikes (called “polders”) to contain the irrigation water. The earthworks had attracted thousands of snakes and, afraid, people refused to work in the fields. Crews were dispatched to kill the snakes. As a result, rats proliferated and their holes undermined the dikes, rendering many unusable.
With those and other troubling information from our investigation we returned to Washington to cast doubt on the desirability of the Manantali and associated works, reporting: “Our findings indicate it would be premature for the United States to make a major pledge of funds….” We added that USAID should proceed with funding of the irrigated perimeters and the Manantali only after Congress had an opportunity for further review and could act on the proposed commitment.
Faced with important opposition in Congress and elsewhere, the Ford Administration subsequently decided against a commitment of funds. I gained a lifelong enemy, one of the USAID Rockefeller Prize winners, who now found his dream project stymied. Others in the donor community went ahead, however, built the dam and constructed the other works. After reading the German minister’s statement that opens this post recently, forty-five years removed from our investigation, I did some additional research.
Only the power generation of the Manantali Dam has met expectations. However, the increased availability of power did not translate into financial benefits because the three governments involved — Senegal, Mali and Mauritania — pay only about half of the required toll for electricity. Agricultural benefits have fallen short of expectations and cereals production in the region actually has fallen.
More important have been the environmental and social impacts. Incidence of waterborne disabling and sometimes fatal diseases like schistosomiasis have increased substantially. Moreover, only a few of the 10,000 farmers turned off their ancestral lands were ever compensated with land irrigated by the Manantali reservoir. The fears expressed in the Bureau of Reclamation study and echoed in our 1975 report had come to pass. I take no joy in that, but have great sympathy for the disease victims and dispossessed farmers. There is pride, however, in having helped stop American participation in “an act of economic and environmental nonsense.”
Note: The reference for our House Foreign Affairs Committee report is “U.S. Development Projects in West Africa, Report of a Staff Survey Mission,” 94th Congress, 2nd Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., March 22, 1976.
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