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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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