Churchill Okonkwo

It was on March 20, 2000 that a group of monkeys driven mad with thirst, clashed with desperate villagers over drinking water in a small outpost town in northern Kenya near the border with Sudan. The fight erupted when relief workers began dispensing water from a tanker truck in the area hit hard by prolonged drought. The monkeys which were generally harmless were forced out of their natural habitat to seek live giving water in human settlement.

Today, Africa is facing water crisis affecting 200 million people. By 2025, nearly 230 million Africans will face water scarcity. United Nations Economic Commission for Africa reports that Africa is one of the world’s driest continents. North Africa, Sudano-Sahelian region and Southern Africa are affected by chronic shortages, while there are abundant water resources in Central Africa, parts of East and West Africa.

Left high and dry

Here we are in the 21^st century where lack of access to clean water still claims the lives of about 4,00 children every day in Africa. There are about 36 African countries with more that 50% of the populace living without access to clean water. More that 40% of child death form diarrhea are in Sub-Saharan Africa with a child’s dying every minute from diarrheal disease. In East Africa, 70% of hospital visits are caused by contaminated water. In many schools more than 200 students make use of one toilet. Yet clean water is one of the many amenities developed countries have taken for granted.

Most Africans live between the parched deserts and dripping rainforests in regions of variable rainfall where small changes have big impacts on water and food supplies. In assessing future vulnerability, Maarten de Wit of the University of Cape Town in South Africa used existing hydrological data to calculate the likely effects of expected climate change on 2 million kilometers of the continent's rivers and concludes that the 100 million or so people living in southern Africa face "a very disturbing situation". With several studies predicting a 10 per cent cut in rainfall across the region by 2050, de Wit calculates that the flow in the region's rivers will fall by as much as half.

Have African countries been left high and dry?

The challenges

The nightmarish scenarios of water-starved Africa should be enough to compel action form African leaders and international organizations. The United Nations Millennium Goals include “To halve by 2015 the population of people who are unable to reach or afford safe drinking water”.  It is disheartening that while the rest of the world is on track to meeting this goal, most African countries are not. In fact, the proportion of people with access to safe water and sanitation is actually decreasing in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The result of erratic rainfall, drought, varying climate, wars and near absence of infrastructural development from governments have made achievement of this goal daunting. In some African countries, there is sufficiently enough water resources to meet the needs of the growing population, but additional treatment, transportation and storage facilities are required. This will mean embarking on large and expensive water development projects. Many countries especially in Sub-Saharan Africa will not muster the necessary financial resources to do this.

Poor governance and absence of political commitment to addressing the water issues in Africa is also a big challenge. While South Africa and Uganda have made significant progress in service provisioning by making access to water a political priority, the rest of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa do not provide adequate budgetary allocation to water and sanitation.

Economic cost

In cities throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, the reliability of the formal water supply is so unreliable that houses build in-house storage tanks and sink wells. According to John Briscoe of World Bank, the size of this hidden water economy dwarfs the size of visible water economy. In major cities in Nigeria like Lagos, Onitsha and Aba, the revenue collected by water vendors is 50 times revenue collected by formal water utility. Impoverished Africans living in slums on the continent were being forced to pay five times as much as people living in rich nations for a liter of clean water.

The existence of this water economy shows that there is high demand for services which has not been successfully provided by the formal sector. Although some of these services are provided efficiently by the vibrant local private sector, the cost of services is exorbitant. This is because the informal providers cannot take advantage of the large economies of scale involved in transmitting water by pipe rather than by vehicle.

A greater percentage of urban dwellers in Nigeria for instance purchase water from street vendors or depend on private wells. The implication of this for the formal sector is that there is enormous reservoir of resources which can be drawn into the formal sector at a reduced cost for all. But this can only happen if the formal sector can provide water those consumers need at a responsive and accountable way.

To be concluded

Robot  # 1 | 11.04.2009 05:53

Churchill Okonkwo It was on March 20, 2000 that a group of monkeys driven mad with thirst, clashed with desperate villagers over drinking water in a small outpost town in northern Kenya near the border with Sudan.The fight erupted when relief workers began dispensing water from a tanker truck in the area hit hard by prolonged drought. The monkeys which were generally harmless were forced out of their natural habitat to seek live giving water in human settlement. Today, Africa is facing water crisis affecting 200 million people. By 2025, nearly 230 million Africans will face water scarcity. United Nations Economic Commission for Africa reports that Africa is one of the world’s driest continents.North Africa, Sudano-Sahelian region and Southern Africa are affected by chronic shortages, while there are abundant water resources in Central Africa, parts of East and West Africa. Left high and dry ...Read the full article.