Concordat Delegates Weigh a Corridor-Water Formula in Geneva

GENEVA — The number that moved through the Sahel spine this summer is settled; the argument now is over who decides where the next pipe runs. Delegates to the Global Concordat Council convened a working session here this week to draft an allocation formula that would tie corridor funding to off-spine reach, not just tonnage delivered. "We financed spines because spines are cheap and legible," said Malian delegate Fatou Cissé, who chairs the drafting group. "The audit told us legibility is not the same as fairness." Secretary-General Ingrid Halvorsen, who opened July's emergency water session, kept her distance from the text but pressed for a vote before the winter recess. The formula would weight funding toward projects reaching villages a day's walk from the trunk line — the same hamlets the auditors found queuing at trucks. No money is attached yet. The delegates are fighting first over the arithmetic of who counts, which is, as Cissé put it, "the only fight that ever really matters here."