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dam-l Africa's potential for water wars/LS




October 11, 1999


               World: Africa

               Africa's potential water wars

               The main conflicts in Africa during the next 25 years could
be over that most
               precious of commodities - water, as countries fight for
access to scarce resources.

               Potential 'water wars' are likely in areas where rivers and
lakes are shared by more
               than one country, according to a UN Development Programme
(UNDP) report.

               The possible flashpoints are the Nile, Niger, Volta and
Zambezi basins.

               The report predicts population growth and economic
development will lead to
               nearly one in two people in Africa living in countries
facing water scarcity or
               what is known as 'water stress' within 25 years.

               Water scarcity is defined as less than 1,000 cu.m of water
available per person per
               year, while water stress means less than 1,500 cu.m of water
is available per
               person per year.

               The report says that by 2025, 11 more African countries will
join the 14 that
               already suffer from water stress or water scarcity

               Nile battle

               The influential head of environmental research institute
Worldwatch, Lester
               Brown, believes that water scarcity is now "the single
biggest threat to global
               food security".


                                     He says that if the combined population
                                     of the three countries the Nile runs
                                     through - Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt -
                                     rises as predicted from 150 million today
                                     to 340 million in 2050 then there could
                                     be intense competition for increasingly
                                     limited water resources.

                                     "There is already little water left
when the
                                     Nile reaches the sea," he says.

                                     And he predicts that Egypt is unlikely to
                                     take kindly to losing out to Ethiopia - a
                                     country with one-tenth of its income.

                                     Indeed water is already a catalyst for
                                     regional conflict.

                                     The Economist magazine's Africa editor
                                     Richard Dowdon says that part of Egypt's
               motivation for supporting Eritrea in its conflict with
Ethiopia is its mistrust of
               Addis Ababa's plans for the Blue Nile.

               Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has already threatened to
bomb Ethiopia if
               they build any dams on it, he says.

               There is also another potential water war in Southern Africa
involving Botswana,
               Namibia and Angola.

               The River Cuito starts in the marshlands of the Okavango
Delta in Botswana
               before heading to Angola through the Caprivi strip in
Namibia - an area that is no
               stranger to tensions and conflict between neighbours.

               Grain imports

               Fresh water is also becoming increasingly unusable because
of pollution.


                                     But given increasing populations
                                     Worldwatch identifies one way of easing
                                     demands for water - importing grain.

                                     Agriculture is by far the biggest user of
                                     water in Africa accounting for 88% of
                                     water use.

                                     It takes about 1,000 tonnes of water to
                                     produce every tonne of grain.

                                     Worldwatch says that already the water
                                     needed to produce the annual combined
                                     imports of grain by the Middle East and
                                     North Africa is equivalent to the annual
                                     flow of the Nile.

                                     Importing grain is much easier than
                                     importing water, but for poorer countries
                                     in Africa it may not be an option.

               For this reason the UN proposes monitoring worldwide
reserves of drinking water
               and establishing agreements for the use of water.

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      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
        and Editor, World Rivers Review
           International Rivers Network
              1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                  Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
                        http://www.irn.org
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