Announcement of Tanzania Receives Assistance for the Environmental Management of Lake Victoria on October 21, 2004

Tanzania Receives Assistance for the Environmental Management of Lake Victoria Media Contact In Washington: Aby Toure (202) 473 8302 akonate@worldbank.org In Dar-es-Salaam: Rosalie Ferrao (255-22) 211 4575 rferrao@worldbank.org Washington, October 21, 2004 – The World Bank Board of Executive Directors today approved an International Development Association (IDA) credit* of US$3.5 million to provide supplemental funding for the environmental management of the ongoing Lake Victoria Project in Tanzania. The original credit for the Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project (LVEMP) was approved in July 1996. This additional funding is considered necessary because of unforeseen cost overruns associated with project execution which were beyond Tanzania’s control, given that the LVEMP is a regional project involving also Kenya and Uganda. With this new credit the three East African Community Partner States will be able to complete important project activities in a coordinated manner over the course of the next 14 months. “The project aims – over the longer term -- to maximize the sustainable benefits to riparian communities from using resources within the basin to generate food, employment and income, supply safe water, and sustain a disease-free environment”, said Ernst Lutz, the World Bank Task Team Leader for the project. “It will also help conserve biodiversity and genetic resources for the benefit of the riparian countries in particular and the global community in general”, Lutz added. During the current Phase, the project is: (a) providing necessary information to improve the management of the lake ecosystem; (b) establishing mechanisms for cooperative management by the three countries; and (c) identifying and demonstrating practical, self-sustaining remedies, while simultaneously building capacity for ecosystem management. Lake Victoria is the second largest freshwater lake in the world. The Lake also holds the world’s largest freshwater fishery, mainly based on the introduced Nile perch and Tilapia. Catches amounted to around 500,000 tons annually during the late 1980s and 1990s, and they therefore contribute enormously to the national economies, including exports of the partner states. The countries’ respective shares in the Lake surface are: Tanzania (49 percent); Uganda (45 percent); and Kenya (6 percent). The supplemental credit will help -- among other things -- promote sustainable use of the natural resources of Lake Victoria and its catchments. It will seek to avoid a decline in the overall fishery as a result of over-fishing and deterioration of Lake water quality, and maintain the water hyacinth infestation at non-nuisance levels. The successful implementation of the project is also expected to increase productivity on the land while reducing nutrient loss through integrated land and water management as well as agro-forestry and/or forestation. Micro-projects that support communities around the Lake and in its watershed will be completed, and degradation of the wetlands will be limited so that they can continue to fulfill their function of buffering effluents. Efforts will be made also to limit a loss in specific fish populations and to restore unique fish fauna and other important terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity. * The credit is provided on standard International Development Association (IDA) terms, with a commitment fee of 0.35 percent, a service charge of 0.75 percent over a 40 year period of maturity which includes a 10-year grace period. For more information on the World Bank’s work in sub-Saharan Africa visit: http://www.worldbank.org/afr For more information on the World Bank’s work in Tanzania visit: www.worldbank.org/afr/tz For more information about this project visit: http://web.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64027221&piPK=64027220&theSitePK=258799&menuPK=287369&Projectid=P090680