Water not a certainty for the developing world

By Gregory Simpkins

If you live in a developed world country, you have the luxury of getting up each morning and having clean, abundant water to bathe with, drink, and use to prepare your food (provided you pay the bill for your service or have your own source of steady water). I call it a luxury because not everyone in the world has this access.

There are as many as four billion people experiencing water shortages for at least four weeks each year, and that number is expected to rise to five billion by 2050. Currently, a quarter of the world’s population lives in countries facing extremely high water stress. Climate change is exacerbating the problem, intensifying floods and droughts, shifting precipitation patterns, and fueling sea level rise. Groundwater is fundamental to life on Earth but many aquifers are becoming overexploited or polluted.

When people become desperate for drinking water, even tainted water is seen as a source of life. Unfortunately, drinking unsafe water leads to waterborne diseases such as botulism, cholera, E. coli, dysentery, and typhoid fever. These diseases affect large numbers of people in the developing world and can retard economic progress, divert government monies that could be spent on profitable pursuits and diminish the productive population of countries.

Before one hearing I managed while Staff Director for the House Subcommittee on Africa, one witness reported having visited a village he was helping to dig wells for water and being offered a glass of water with worms at the bottom. This was the drinking water people there used without considering the impact of the parasites contained within because that was all they had to drink.

Climate change

To make matters worse, it is estimated that 1.5 billion people will live in African cities by 2050, more than double the number today. African cities – including unplanned urban areas and informal settlements – are already facing staggering challenges: poverty, the need for more and better jobs, and a lack of housing and basic infrastructure, all of which will be compounded by rapid urban growth. Are African urban planners taking this into account?

According to a paper on water management in the Caribbean written for the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology in Barbados, the Caribbean faces inexorable climate change during the 21^st century.

“This phenomenon will have a profound effect on the long-term sustainable socioeconomic development of the islands and is likely to jeopardize the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). All economic and social sectors will be adversely affected. The water resources sector on most islands is one that will be strongly impacted by climate change. Against a background of increasing demand for potable water, sea-level rise may lead to flooding of lowlands and seawater intrusion into coastal aquifers, while variability in climate may see more intense rainstorms resulting both in increased run-off leading to increased flooding and reduced recharge leading to aquifer depletion. Such impacts will have a negative ripple effect on other vital aspects of regional economies such as the tourism, recreational, agricultural, and industrial sectors,” the paper stated.

Nearly two-thirds of Africa’s people earn their living in agriculture, which is the sector that uses the most water in Africa, accounting for an estimated 88 percent of water use.

Africa – a continent already plagued by conflict – can look forward to even greater discord in the years ahead due to the lack of sufficient water for growing populations. Potential “water wars” already are showing signs of gathering critical mass in areas where rivers and lakes are shared by countries. Thirteen African countries already experience water stress or water scarcity, and 12 more are set to join their ranks by 2025. The most likely flash points are around the Nile, Niger, Volta, and Zambezi basins.

The Nile runs through Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, and their combined populations – at current growth rates – could rise from today’s 150 million people to 340 million by 2050. Before then, however, the long-running conflict over the Nile’s water could spark warfare. As far back as 1991, Egypt warned that it was ready to use force to protect its access to the waters of the Nile.  Less and less of the Nile’s water remains once the river reaches the sea.

Ethiopia’s unilateral filling of the dam’s reservoir will worsen water scarcity in Egypt and Sudan, threatening to set a dangerous precedent for regional water politics if the three states do not resume negotiations. The RANE Worldview website reported last year that Ethiopia completed its third filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in early August, ignoring Egypt and Sudan’s emphatic objections to increasing the amount of water in the dam’s reservoir to nearly a third of its total capacity of 74 billion cubic meters.

This filling brought Ethiopia closer to its rumored goal of reaching the reservoir’s full capacity by 2027 and is the latest round of unilateral action in a decade-long dispute. Situated in the highlands of the Benishangul-Gumuz region of northwestern Ethiopia, the GERD’s annual fillings and ongoing operations will alter the flow of the Nile River, which contains more than 85 percent of the water passing through Sudan and Egypt.

The Niger River, which flows from Guinea through Mali to Nigeria, is vital for food, water, and transport, especially to Mali, one of the world’s poorest countries. Pollution is making the Niger’s water increasingly unusable. Southern Africa’s Zambezi River is one of the world’s most overused river systems. Nations such as Zambia and Zimbabwe compete fiercely to harness its water power, although at times there are heavy rains and flooding. Zimbabwe caused the region to experience the worst floods in recent history in 2000 when it opened the Kariba dam gates.

Ghana, a star among African countries, is dependent on the Volta River for its hydroelectric output, but regular droughts make its production of electricity from the Akosombo Dam erratic and limits Ghana’s ability to sustain its non-energy economic production. Less output from the dam not only constrains Ghana’s ability to produce hydroelectric power but also its ability to provide power to neighbors.

Impact to agriculture

In some ways, economic development worsens limited water situations. Nearly two-thirds of Africa’s people earn their living in agriculture, which is the sector that uses the most water in Africa, accounting for an estimated 88 percent of water use. Since it takes about a thousand tons of water to produce each ton of grain, any progress in agricultural output in Africa will further stress limited water supplies.

Ahead of the recent United Nations 2023 Water Conference, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) called for accelerated investments to help small-scale farmers in developing countries access and manage increasingly scarce water resources in the face of a changing climate and more extreme weather events.

“There is no food security without water security. Water is indispensable to produce food but small-scale farmers increasingly struggle to access the water they need to grow their crops and feed their animals, leading to human suffering, migration, and conflict,” said Jyotsna Puri, IFAD Associate Vice-President, Strategy and Knowledge Department. “Solutions exists, but investments are needed to help millions of small-scale farmers access them.”

About 3.2 billion people overall live in agricultural areas with high to very high water shortages or scarcity of which 1.2 billion people – roughly one-sixth of the world’s population – live in severely water-constrained agricultural areas. While small-scale farmers produce one-third of the world’s food and up to 70 percent of the food produced in developing countries, they increasingly face water challenges due to climate change. Since 2000, the number and duration of droughts have increased by 29 percent. Population growth causes an increased demand for water, which is also a key driver of water scarcity.

“The only solution is to make the best use of every single drop. Small water infrastructure, better soil and water management, and natural solutions such as agro-forestry can go a long way in ensuring small-scale farmers have the water they need,” added Puri. “We need to increase investments from the public and private sectors to accelerate the uptake of proven techniques and local solutions.”

Those of us in the developed world must avoid thinking of polluted and absent water in developing countries as merely “their” problem. Aside from the moral imperative to try to make life better for others in our world, the water problems in developing countries will affect us sooner or later. Addressing these problems before they get worse is the most reasonable strategy available to us. We need to consider that the next time we turn on the tap and get as much clean water as we want and see if we can help them to enjoy greater access to clean water.

Gregory Simpkins, a longtime specialist in African policy development, is the Principal of 21st Century Solutions. He consults with organizations on African policy issues generally, especially in relating to the U.S. Government. He also serves as Managing Director for the Morganthau Stirling consulting firm, where he oversees program development and implementation. He further acts as a consultant to the African Merchants Association, where he advises the Association in its efforts to stimulate an increase in trade between several hundred African Diaspora small and medium enterprises and their African partners.