The Anambra Imo River Basin Development Authority in Water Governance and the Economic Development of Southeastern Nigeria.
The Imo River is a strategic natural resource and a development priority that offers many opportunities, and poses many challenges for water governance and the material advancement of the Southeastern region of Nigeria. The main water ways which traverse the region especially the Niger River and the Cross River, have been studied in detail by previous authors. But the Imo River, which from very early times provided a vital means of river transport in the area, is only beginning to receive some attention, with the establishment of the Anambra Imo River Development Authority, AIRBDA, which was expected to help harness the enormous agricultural and other potentials of the area, and to help uplift the lives and livelihoods of the local communities along the river basin. This paper examines the opportunities and challenges of developing the Imo River basin with the creation of Abia state in 1991 and also considers the role which the Federal and State governments of Nigeria should play to provide the infrastructure and regulatory framework to enable the local communities and other stakeholders to take full advantage of the resources of the river basin. It further points out certain strategic projects, such as irrigation and related schemes, which the AIRBDA and other public and private sector agencies can undertake in order to promote economic and social activities in such areas of rice farming, fisheries and transportation, and so on. The scope of the paper covers pre colonial time to the present while the adopted methodology draws from an interdisciplinary body of literature on water governance, the records of the AIRBDA and from general interviews with some of the local communities of the river basin.
Keywords: agriculture, development, irrigation, resources, river.
