Water supply used to be a big headache for Senegal, as its northern part is close to the Sahara Desert and its western part is semi-desert. Every day in Balin, a small village in Senegal, people had to get up early in the morning to line up and fetch water for the whole day's use from the only well in the village. Some had to walk more than two kilometers to reach the well. The facilities were dilapidated and villagers' basic needs could not be met for many years.
Things changed in 2018. In September of that year, Balin had its second well, providing adequate clean water for drinking, for irrigation, and livestock farming. This \"well of happiness,\" as local people called it, has improved their living standards enormously. And this is just one out of the 251 wells China built in Senegal. Under the rural well-drilling project financed by the Chinese government under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), more than 1,800 kilometers of pipelines were laid, providing water for two million of Senegal's population. And it has created jobs for over 3,000 local people.
Senegal is not the only country that benefits from the BRI. In Angola, where in most areas people did not have access to tap water, they could only rely on water delivery trucks for daily use and had to pay for it. In June 2022, China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) completed the Cabinda water supply project in Angola and numerous local people got access to tap water for the first time in their lives. \"Thumbs up for China! Thank you for coming here to help us!\" These were the words of the 600,000 residents who benefited from the projects.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
