Algeria, Tunisia and Libya sign an agreement to establish a consultation mechanism on joint groundwater management – Algerian Dialogue

Today, Wednesday in Algiers, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya signed an agreement to establish a consultation mechanism on the management of their shared groundwater in the northern Sahara.
The agreement was signed on the Algerian side by the Minister of Irrigation, Taha Derbal, on the Tunisian side by the Minister of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries, Abdel Moneim Belaati, and on the Libyan side by the Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Mohamed Faraj Essid Guenidi.
In his speech on this occasion, Taha Darbal stressed that the agreement “opens a new and promising page in the field of coordination and cooperation between our countries in a vital field, which is water resources, to which every development process is linked.”
The leaders of the three countries, Presidents Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Kais Saied and Mohamed Younes Menfi, had agreed in their first consultative meeting, held the day before yesterday, Monday in Tunisia, to accelerate the activation of joint mechanisms to exploit the shared groundwater in the northern desert and to accelerate the implementation of the simultaneous electrical interconnection project between the electricity transmission networks. between the three countries.
It was also agreed to “form a joint working group to formulate mechanisms for establishing major joint projects and investments in priority areas and sectors, such as grain and feed production, seawater desalination, and other projects and cooperation programs aimed at achieving water and food security for the three countries,” according to the final statement of the Tunis Summit. .