Water and Food in Africa: 2022

Since the last post discussed some of the ineffectiveness of the community management projects, this post will focus on private sector participation and provide some of my own understandings of a good combination of institutions for sub-Saharan African(SSA) countries. The phrase privatisation refers to various contractual agreements between the government and the private sector, from a management contract through divestiture. The emphasis of development policy has moved from the state to the private sector during the last two decades.  In most sections of the SSA, privatisation is now at the core of utility reform. Figure 1: Water supply and sanitation improved in seven sub-Saharan countries between 1990 and 2008. Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (2010) Decentralisation-induced improvements have resulted in an overall improvement in water delivery. The good effect is shown in the high number of upgraded water sources, which supply communities with a broader sele...

Community water management has been a widely accepted strategy in primarily low-income countries suffering from water insecurity problems. It seems to be a straightforward solution: every community is responsible for its own water resources. Is that really the case? In Sub-Saharan Africa(SSA) Countries, community development and sustainability have become very important due to the inefficiency of top-down approaches and government supports. Involving the locals in all stages of a project is therefore considered essential for well-functioning community management in the long run. Involving the locals in the selection of appropriate technologies, sites and service levels, and encouraging them to pay for part of the investment, operation and maintenance costs, is essential to gaining community support. In some cases, the locals may find this cheap water supply beneficial and would like to participate. In other cases, local users may expect the services to be free since they may think it ...

 COP27 was held and finished several weeks ago 'successfully'. COP27's primary focus is on climate justice. This means that developing countries, which account for the most negligible historical carbon emission, have unfairly suffered more from the global climate crisis. However, many scholars and critics have seen this conference as a 'failure' for many reasons. I agree with the critics and argue that Africa needs more practical help from COP27, which it failed to accomplish this time.                                                                     Figure 1: a picture of  COP27. ( Source ) As the window of opportunity to meet our goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C or lower rapidly closes , COP 27 does too little on the most critical mitigation issue of all - reducing emissions. Climate just...

COP 27 stands for the 2022  United Nations Climate Change Conference , the 27th United nation Climate Change conference held from 6th November until 18 November 2022. It will be held in an Egyptian coastal city Sharm el-Sheikh. All major stakeholders, including heads of state, ministers, climate activities and more, are gathering for the largest annual climate action meeting. This post was written before the conference took place and argues that the decision-makers should prioritise climate justice. The focus will be the disproportionate impact received by Africa, how it influences food security and why climate justice should be prioritised. First of all, Africa, as well as the globe, is facing a severe climate crisis. Climate change hazards to agricultural productivity, food security, water resources, and ecosystem services may significantly affect African lives and chances for sustainable developmen t. In 2007, the IPCC anticipated that climate change and variability would ...

Water scarcity refers to the situation of lacking access to safe drinking water. UN's sustainable development goal (SDG) 6 has shown that access the affordable, clean and safe drinking water is a  fundamental human right . The growing lack of water can be shown in two ways, economic and physical water scarcity.  Economic water scarcity  refers to the institutional failings that prevent people from accessing safe water, such as poor infrastructure and lack of planning from a politically unstable government.  Physical water scarcity  literally means the lack of water supply which may result from seasonality and climate change. Unfortunately, Africa is struggling with both types of water scarcity due to many factors such as government failure, climate change and especially  the rapid population growth  with a rate above 2% annually. Water scarcity is predicted to reach a dangerously high level by 2025. By now,  1 in 3 Africans is facing water scarcit...

From my previous studies and human ecology course learnt in year one, water and food scarcity are always constant threats facing mankind. Africa is usually recognised as a vulnerable continent that constantly faces water and food crises. The situation in 2022 has worsened economically, politically and environmentally.   To understand the current situation, potential challenges, and further discussions about individual countries, it is helpful for the readers to know my viewpoint on this complicated issue. Since lack of food and water is an obvious 'tag' on Africa, my introduction post will briefly clarify the typical stereotypes of African studies and help readers to better understand my future blogs. I will try to avoid the inequalities within my writing and be objective in writing about Africa. Understand the complexity of 'Africa.' A typical picture of Africa: big and red sunset, wild empty savanna. Source Before going into details about water and food in Africa, the...