#Solution Improving knowledge of Congo River resources
Update 2015-11-30GIVING VULNERABLE AREAS THE CAPACITY TO COPE WITH CLIMATE CHANGE
French Development Agency Initiative
adaptation
The French Development Agency is providing support to the International Commission for the Congo-Oubangui-Sangha Basin (CICOS) for the implementation of hydrological monitoring for the Congo River which is critical for its exceptional characteristics: 204 million hectares of forests, 60% of African biodiversity, 25,000 km of waterways, 100 GW of hydro-power generating capacity which is enough to supply half the needs of the continent.
The Congo River is at the center of global concerns on climate change and biodiversity, but carrying out environmental monitoring for such a large hydrological basin is a real challenge. France is assisting the transboundary basin organization in improving Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), through projects amounting to 2.6 million euros. One of these projects, which was finalized in 2015, consisted in developing a modelling and decision-support tool in order, among other things, to estimate sensitivity to climate variability. Hydrological monitoring will be improved notably thanks to a world-first innovation that uses Earth observation satellites. Better knowledge will lead to better planning and resilient local economic development that will benefit over 160 million people in Central Africa.