0000060251 00000 n In Seychelles and most countries in North Africa, 100 per cent of the population has access to sanitation.

At the same time, sector reform and large-scale irrigation investments in countries such as Cameroon and Nigeria, with World Bank support, are helping to move the needle on irrigated agriculture. There is no scenario in which African societies adapt successfully to climatic change and do not simultaneously radically reimagine both their relationship with the outside world and with each other, including institutions of control and mechanisms of exclusion at home. In a region plagued by drought and poverty, this river could have become the source of conflict. With one in three people facing water scarcity, the continent is contending with dangerous levels of water stress. All rights reserved. In Ghana, the Pwalugu Dam in the Upper East is in the final planning stage.

Through the voices of peasants and fishermen, displaced by the dam and the workers who built it, this essay analyzes the far-reaching social, political, and ecological consequences of Cahora Bassa. These overarching themes form the collective basis for the host of essays in this volume that provide rich accounts of conflicts and struggles over water use and how these tensions have been mitigated. This essay tracks the global and African growth of the benefits and costs of water resource developments, explores the reasons for the costs, and offers insights on new scientific thinking that can help guide Africa to a more sustainable future. DOI : 10.53328/MUNM8683. Somalia, Chad and Niger appear to be the least water secure.

Not a single country or subregion has yet achieved the highest level of model or even the reasonably high effective stages of national water security.

The report, which covers 54 African countries, evaluated 10 indicators to conclude that about 500 million people spread across 19 countries in the continent are water-stressed. The levels of water security in Africa overall are unacceptably low, according to the United Nations first-ever such assessment released on the eve of World Water Day (March 22), 2022. New report: Is the solution to water crises hiding right under our feet? The rising climate-risk has outpaced their abilities to adapt, the analysis said. The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly. 0000070878 00000 n This essay explores the multiple ways in which the nexuses between water scarcity and climate change are socially and historically grounded in ordinary peoples lived experiences and are embedded in specific fields of power. Cooperation is particularly important in Africa, where 90 percent of water falls within 63 international catchments, crossing multiple borders. These threats, which have devastating effects on resettled communities and the countrys ecosystem, also constitute a threat to domestic and international security. An early assessment of the continent's water security finds Egypt ranked most secure - but climate change presenting threats across Africa.Little of Africa's wastewater is treated, water for drinking and hand-washing is scarce for hundreds of millions of people, and water-related disasters like flooding are on the rise, particularly in West Africa. At the time, it was the fifth-largest dam in the world. The number of countries that made some progress (29) is close to the number of those that made none (25). However, critics have adopted their own environmental justice narratives to denounce the failure of Ethiopias developmental model and its benefiting of specific ethnolinguistic constituencies at the expense of the broader population. One of the main protective measures against the coronavirus is to wash hands with soap, yet nearly 63 percent of people in Sub-Saharan Africas urban areas struggle to access basic water services. In Benin, four out of 10 rural households lack basic access to water services and one-fifth of the death and disease burden is related to water, sanitation, and hygiene. The hydroelectric dam was the last megaproject constructed in Africa during the turbulent era of decolonization. In many countries, climate change impacts - from worsening flooding to harsher droughts and stronger storms - are making achieving water security more difficult, Oluwasanya said. Except for Egypt, all country scores are lower than 70. 0000003356 00000 n The World Bank is ready to move this conversation forward to ensure water for people, water for production, and water for the planet. It also explores the devastating impact on riparian life downriver from the dam, which dramatically reduced the annual inundation of the floodplain that supported hundreds of thousands of farmers as well as fish, birds, and mammals. On the African continent, there are many pressure points that need transformative action for a greener, more resilient future. The existence of explicit principles, whether as policy guidelines, constitutional rights, or in the language of regional and international agreements, provides two important resources for those who struggle for access to water. In the absence of reliable public water, its residents have adapted creatively, developing their own solutions in a way that has drawn on knowledge and practice from rural areas as well as new urban-centered strategies. Africas average per capita water storage capacity has increased by just three per cent in over five recent years, according to the assessment.

All country scores are below 70 (on a scale of 100) except for Egypt. What was eighty years ago a small town of a mere forty thousand residents is today the worlds second-fastest growing city, with a population of more than six million.

Whether below or above ground, water flows across borders and boundaries and needs to be shared for the public good, without compromising the sustainability of ecosystems and the environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the significant gaps in water and sanitation services on the continent, with serious consequences for public health. 6. water infrastructure, 0000082408 00000 n We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. We believe strongly that we can and must do things differently. They overlook not only ecological complexities but also the multitude of ways in which various population groups across the continent approach climatological variability, thereby challenging positivist modeling and external adaptation agendas. 10. physiography. So far, 29 African countries have made some progress toward meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) on universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation in the last three to five years, but 25 have made none, the report said.

The report, "Water Security in Africa: A preliminary Assessment," was launched in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, ahead of World Water Day, which falls on Tuesday this year. 0000024038 00000 n The continents third-longest river, the Senegal River, stretches across Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania. lack of menstrual hygiene facilities in schools.

Data limitations, however, do not change the main outcome of this assessment, which is strong and clear: levels of water security in Africa overall are unacceptably low. First, a vision of a more just allocation of this fundamental resource and, second, an articulation of common benchmarks to which states and governments might be held to account. 9. water disaster risks and 0000011641 00000 n 63 0 obj <> endobj xref 63 45 0000000016 00000 n With 95 percent of farming reliant on rainfall, climate change poses extreme risks to agriculture in the region.

It posits that while the colonial government racialized access to water by restricting its use by urban Africans, the postcolonial government failed to change the colonial patterns of urban water distribution and did little to increase water supplies to keep pace with a swiftly growing urban population and a geographically expanding city.

In fact, 40 per cent of Africas total population or 483 million people lack sanitation. Due to climate change, droughts have had a devastating impact on local agriculture. Ten complementary and interdependent components of national water security are considered: To legitimize such material and ideational transformations and reposition itself in international politics, the Ethiopian party-state has embedded the dam in a discourse of environmental justice: a rectification of historical and geographical ills to which Ethiopia and its impoverished masses were subjected. Researchers warned the findings should be taken as only a first effort at assessing Africa's water security, particularly as they faced substantial barriers in accessing reliable data. 0000023688 00000 n Water infrastructure has been found to be the best in southern Africa and worst in east Africa.

It brings together relevant ministries, departments, and agencies to address issues around the protection, management, use, and knowledge of water resources and the surrounding natural environment. In Uganda and in parts of the Sahel, farmers have begun to take the lead in establishing or expanding irrigation systems at a micro level. Well-managed water resources, both surface and underground, can help respond to Africas existing and future needs. The plan aims to establish an integrated platform to coordinate all water-related planning, policies, and investments. 7. water quality,

0000020450 00000 n Water Security in Africa in the Age of Global Climate Change, Urban Struggles over Water Scarcity in Harare, Water for Bongo: Creative Adaptation, Resilience & Dar es Salaams Water Supply, Everyday Experiences of Water Insecurity: Insights from Underserved Areas of Accra, Ghana, Cahora Bassa Dam & the Delusion of Development, Ghanas Akosombo Dam, Volta Lake Fisheries & Climate Change, The Dammed Body: Thinking Historically about Water Security & Public Health, The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Africas Water Tower, Environmental Justice & Infrastructural Power, Hydropolitics versus Human Security: Implications of South Africas Appropriation of Lesothos Highlands Water, An Offer You Can Refuse: A Host Countrys Strategic Allocation of Development Financing, Between Principles & Power: Water Law Principles & the Governance of Water in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Africas Living Rivers: Managing for Sustainability, Climate & Water in a Changing Africa: Uncertainty, Adaptation & the Social Construction of Fragile Environments.

0000006503 00000 n Water availability has recently declined in west, central and southern Africa due to a growth in population, the report said.