Madar (Niamey) - Niger's Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine on Wednesday, 11 November 2026, chaired a high-level round table of the technical and financial partners of the Kandadji programme, seeking solutions to the setbacks delaying a project launched nearly two decades ago, the official Niger Press Agency (ANP) reported.
Zeine said the programme's updated total cost stands at $1,561 million, of which partners have already committed $1,000 million, leaving "a financing need of around $561 million to be mobilised", according to the agency.
Located 189 kilometres northwest of Niamey, the programme includes a dam on the Niger River, a 130 MW hydroelectric plant, 45,000 hectares of irrigated land and improved management of the river.
"Kandadji is not just another project. It is a vital programme for our country," the prime minister said, acknowledging that it "has accumulated too many delays". He blamed "the multiplicity of actors, rules and procedures, difficulties in carrying out the works and the security context", which he said had raised its cost for the country and the people concerned.
He asked that by the end of the meeting "each partner be able to indicate its planned contribution, quantified and dated", and called for a roadmap setting out responsibilities, deadlines and a coordination mechanism, to be monitored by a joint government-partners team, with "a first progress review before the end of the year".
The government proposed a framework based on four principles: a lead partner alongside the government, a role the World Bank has been asked to take on; a common financing mechanism with harmonised procedures; commitments honoured on a firm timetable; and joint monitoring.
In return, the government pledged transparency in implementing the programme, including the population resettlement plan and its environmental and social component, to guarantee the security of people, facilities and worksites, to mobilise the national counterpart funding, and to apply "zero tolerance" to any misuse of resources, ANP said.
