The Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal Felou Second Hydroelectric (APL) Project (WAPP APL 2) aims to: (a) augment the low cost electricity supply to the national power utilities of Mali (EDM), Mauritania (SOMELEC) and Senegal (SENELEC) as a means to alleviate widening power supply deficits that have resulted in chronic load shedding in Senegal River Basin countries (Mali, Mauritania, Senegal); and (b) develop the power system of the Senegal River Basin Development Authority (OMVS) into a nucleus power pooling mechanism that can be replicated for other sub-regions of WAPP "Zone B". This developmental objective is to be achieved, inter alia, by: (a) implementing the proposed OMVS 2nd Generation Hydropower Projects at the Felou and Gouina sites using a Design-Build-Operate-Transfer (DBOT) approach that involves deployment of date-certain, fixed price, performance-based contracts for each plant (see Figure 2 below); and (b) providing institutional restructuring and capacity building support to improve the efficiency and performance of the public-private partnership involving an OMVS-sponsored power asset holding entity (currently the Societe de Gestion de l'Energie de Manantali - SOGEM) and a private operation and maintenance concessionaire (currently ESKOM Energie Mali (EEM). As part of the ongoing restructuring of OMVS institutions5, SOGEM is to be transformed into the proposed L'Agence de Gestion du Patrimoine de l'OMVS (AGP-OMVS).
