On December 2, 2015, Trans Africa Pipeline Inc. and the Pan African Great Green Wall Project (PAGGW) formally signed a Letter of Intent of Cooperation "to establish a partnership …for the implementation of the Great Green Wall via the Trans Africa Pipeline project."
The Great Green Wall Agency was established by 11 African countries to work towards halting the desertification of their countries. Every year, each of the PAGGW countries loses about 600 square kilometers of their territory to encroaching desert.
Trans Africa Pipeline Inc., established in 2005, will build a freshwater continental pipeline traversing each of these countries, to reduce desertification and to provide a sustainable source of clean, fresh water to the populations of each country.
This Letter of Intent of Co-operation lays out the framework for the signing of a formal Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations, a highly-significant step in getting shovels in the ground to build TAP.
The Letter of Intent spells out prerequisites including:
specifics on TAP financing, potential contractors and project management;
the utilization of the current ‘DBOT’ method for major infrastructure projects – which includes design, build, operate and transfer models;
the impact of TAP on construction of the Great Green Wall, to slow or halt encroaching desert;
socio-economic effects such as the development of rural entrepreneurship, made possible by the use of water for agriculture including the creation of employment particularly in green economic sectors;
strengthening capacities for the resilience to climate change;
and strengthening basic social services including health, access to water, education and renewable energy sources.
TAP has completed the majority of the necessary prerequisites and reports, and expects to provide this document to PAGGW by the beginning of March, this year.
