Water in Africa

Water is a precious resource that humans rely on in order to survive. A necessity. A foundation to life itself. Today we find that safe drinking water is scare on our planet. Figure 1 demonstrate the scarcity and importance of water found on Earth. The fact that there is only 2.5% of global water is freshwater. However, most importantly there are areas with water security and areas with water crisis across our planet today. Africa suffering from severe water crisis in general. There are many different issues with water availability disparities and types of water scarcity that exist across the continent. 

Water in Africa: 

Africa is a continent consisting of 54 countries with more than 1.2 billion people residing on the continent (National Geographic 2018). There is a reported 341 million people in Africa that have a lack of access to clean water despite the continent having what appears to be an abundance of water sources (PANC 2010). I mean in the sense that Africa has seventeen rivers, each with catchments over 100,000km2, more than 160 lake that are larger than 27km2 and wetlands and groundwater sources found across the continent (PANC 2010). On top of that Africa receives plenty rainfall that increases water availability. However, the problem here is the poor management of water supply and use which has created the problem of poor access to clean drinking water. Furthermore, there is disparities between the distribution of water across the continent. For example, the Congo river basin contains about 50% of Africa’s total surface water whereas Kenya on have around 950m3 freshwater per capita per year (Lewis 2010). This is a physical water scarcity due to different groups of people having different levels of access to a clean water supply. However, there is also economic water scarcity where people cannot afford to use adequate water sources, which has led to heavy dependence on groundwater supply which requires least amount of purification and treatment, where 75% of Africa drinking water is supplied from. There are many inequalities found in the access of clean water across Africa that will be investigated in the coming weeks. This is the water crisis that is occurring in Africa now due to the poor management of water supply across the continent. 

Water Scarcity in Africa: Issues and Challenges (Lewis 2010): 

1. Uneven distribution of water - 75% of water resources located in 8 major river basins   
2. Climate Change - desertification, deforestation and droughts have increased water scarcity 
3. Industrial and Agricultural Pollution – industrial waste and agrochemical contaminating sources 
4. Mismanaging Water sources - heavy water use in agriculture and industry rather domestic use 
5. Infrastructural Issues – lack of investment in water filtration, piped supply, well creation and rain collection etc. 

In the poorest nations within the continent there are different level of effective and structured governance. Water scarcity is one the world's greatest challenges, especially in Africa where weather conditions and economic development have stuttered decreasing their capacity to cope in managing water resources. Sub-Saharan Africa is one the most vulnerable regions to water stress, where water sources are unevenly distributed. Where out of 980 large dams in the region, South Africa has around 589 dams whereas Tanzania only 2 dams despite have similar land mass and populations (Tatlock 2006) Then there are other regions where there are trans-boundary conflict arising with regards the allocation and development of dams on one source of water. For example, Egypt and Ethiopia’s conflict with water from the River Nile. Egypt heavily dependent on the River Nile water to help 40 million farmers irrigate their fields, so when Ethiopia proposed building a dam it sparked intense conflict between the two countries (Pearce 2015). With increasingly limited water sources available, governments must respond quickly and effectively to maintain peace and order within the region. However, in many cases there is poor resource management compounded by corruption and shortage of investments that undermines the effective governance of water. 

Water use in Africa 

According to the UN it states that a human being needs 50 litres of water per day for personal use, in terms of preparing food, hygiene and daily necessities. Whereas it has been highlighted that many people in Africa live with 20 litres of water per day, considerably less consumption of water! Either to the lack of physical availability of water or the lack of affordability of water (Water for Africa n/d). Furthermore, in Africa 85% of water consumption is used in agriculture to support growing population and economy, ONLY 10% used domestically in households and 5% in industry (Lewis 2010). There are many countries that follow this general trend that creates inequalities across the continent. The over-extraction of water resources and constant irrigation of the land will severely deteriorate the quality and quantity of clean water available 

Africa’s population currently suffers from lack of access to SAFE clean drinking water, which arises from different situations and issues. The water and sanitation crisis in the African continent are major threat to the livelihood of many girls and women and the health of the citizens within each country. There are many marginalised communities, towns and rural villages that lack the infrastructure to access a safe drinking water supply, which only exacerbates the sanitation problem within these remote areas. Whereas in the urban city, despite having access to drinking water, some sources may be contaminated which will only harm your health. However, due to lack of awareness on the practice of good hygiene despite have good access to water, it will only lead to long term health problems. How people use water and how people treat their waste and hygiene will influence the crisis occurring in Africa. 

In the coming weeks, Africa’s water and sanitation crisis will be assessed along with note-worthy events that looks to solve this crisis