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dam-l Africa's water shortages/LS
FEATURE-Africa deluge masks water
shortage threat
Alistair Thomson
03/13/00
ABIDJAN, March 14 (Reuters) - Torrential rain
and floods have devastated parts of
southeast Africa, but the main worry for most
of the continent's inhabitants is having not
too much water, but not enough.
Nearly two out of three Africans living in
rural areas lack an adequate water supply, and
nearly three quarters have insufficient
sanitation, according to the African Development
Bank (AfDB).
And things are getting worse.
More Africans lack adequate water services than
in 1990, and Africa is the only continent
where poverty is expected to increase over the
next 100 years, according to projections by
the United Nations Development Programme.
``It's a vicious circle,'' said Professor
Albert Wright, a Ghanaian civil engineering and
sanitation specialist who has played a key role
in drafting Africa's presentation to the World
Water Forum which opens in The Hague on March 17.
``Because of the lack of water there are
socio-economic problems, which mean there are not
the resources to develop the water resources,''
Wright told Reuters.
Lack of water is literally sapping the strength
of African people. Apart from the millions of
people malnourished because of crop failure,
water-borne disease is rife.
``People are laden with worms and diseases
which make them weak. People say that half the
work of a sick peasant goes to producing food
to feed the worms that make him sick,'' said
Wright.
Almost half of all Africans suffer from one of
six main water-related diseases, with cholera
and infant diarrhoea the most pervasive, the
AfDB says. Of the 46 countries worldwide
where infection by the bilharzia worm is
endemic, 40 are in Africa.
With three percent population growth a year --
the highest of any continent -- demand for
water can only increase.
DISTRIBUTION IS BIGGEST PROBLEM
Africa's problem is not how much rain falls,
but where it falls.
``Africa is plagued with extreme variations in
weather,'' Wright said. ``In places like the
Congo, water (supply) is increasing, while in
other areas it is decreasing -- places like
Angola, Mozambique, Namibia.''
Which makes the floods in Mozambique and
surrounding countries, which have killed
hundreds and made hundreds of thousands
homeless, all the more cruelly ironic.
Wright said a key problem was compiling
information on rainfall and other water sources to
help plan supply strategies.
Poor information means water extraction
projects are at risk of exacerbating the very
problems they are meant to solve, and projects
such as Libya's which pumps ground water
from beneath the Sahara desert can become
politically charged.
``We don't know very much about the extent of
the ground water resources in Africa. There
is a lack of information,'' Wright said.
Experts say climatic factors such as global
warming are also making it increasingly difficult
to forecast rainfall on the basis of historical
weather patterns.
WATER WARS A WORRY
As water becomes an ever more crucial
commodity, experts fear it could cause more conflict
in an already war-torn continent.
``Current approaches to water resources
management are unsustainable and are most likely
to lead us to crisis and disastrous
consequences,'' Wright said. ``One of the major concerns
is that water becomes an instrument of war, not
of development.''
Major problems occur where catchment basins or
water sources such as lakes and rivers are
shared by several countries, who compete for
the available water.
One such flashpoint is the Okavango river,
which briefly crosses Namibia on its way from
the highlands of Angola to empty itself into
the Okavango Delta in Botswana.
In the Namibian capital Windhoek fresh water is
so scarce that around one sixth of the water
supply comes from recycled sewage. There are
proposals to build a 250 km (155 miles)
pipeline from the Okavango, which Botswana
fears may harm the delta and its lucrative
tourist industry.
Another area of potential conflict is the
rapidly disappearing Lake Chad. The lake, bordered
by Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad itself,
has shrunk from 25,000 square kilometres
(9,653 square miles) in the early 1960s to just
2,000 square kilometres (772 square miles)
today.
Fishermen still eking out a living on the lake
have even had to narrow the mesh of their
nets in order to catch ever smaller fish.
DESERTS EXPANDING
Lake Chad is a victim of the relentless
southern advance of the Sahara Desert towards the
humid and fertile southern tract of West Africa.
Politicians and experts from Africa, Latin
America and the Caribbean who gathered in the
Malian capital Bamako on March 6 to discuss
desertification heard that two thirds of
Africa's surface was desert.
``Desertification poses a serious threat on
every continent, affecting 70 percent of the
world's dry farmland,'' Hama Arba Diallo,
executive secretary for the United Nations
convention on the struggle against
desertification, told delegates.
Whatever the complex causes of spreading
deserts, it is clear that deforestation, over-grazing
and unsustainable agricultural practices all
play a part. Africa, the economic laggard in
global terms and still highly dependent on
agriculture and related industries such as logging,
is the continent the least well equipped to
mend its ways.
At least part of the answer lies in improving
basic education, and teaching ``water wisdom''
Wright said. Improved technology, both in more
efficient use of water for sanitation and
agriculture as well as cheaper methods of
purifying sea water for coastal regions, is also
vital.
As water sector specialists prepare to put
Africa's case to the Hague summit, Wright said
that pushing water up the international agenda
is essential if the continent's water problems
are to be resolved.
``At this stage what we want to do is to raise
awareness of the problem we face and the need
for help.''
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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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