Working Together for Sustainable Water Management: The Opti-WaM Story

This video presents the achievements and lessons learned from the Optimizing Water Management for Sustainable Ecosystems (Opti-WaM) project. It highlights the project's remarkable 2.4-year journey, implemented in Benin and Burkina Faso by a multidisciplinary team comprising government institutions, universities, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Working collaboratively, the partners identified key challenges related to environmental flows at dams in West Africa and jointly developed practical solutions. Throughout the project, particular emphasis was placed on ensuring the meaningful participation of marginalized communities living downstream of the case study dams, allowing their knowledge, needs, and perspectives to inform the co-creation of sustainable water management strategies.