Do 'Water Wars' Still Loom in Africa?
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
May 15, 2004
Posted to the web May 20, 2004

Jacklynne Hobbs*
Johannesburg

When water affairs ministers from countries along the Nile met
recently to discuss the fate of the river, Boutros Boutros-Ghali was
not in the room with them. But the lingering memory of his comment
that future wars would be fought over water probably was.

The former United Nations Secretary-General first made the remark in
the 1980s. The notion of potential 'water wars' has also been explored
in a book of the same title and in numerous reports. In addition, the
phrase crops up repeatedly in articles that deal with water scarcity
in Africa, and the possibility of conflict amongst communities
desperate to ensure access to water.

In addition to the Nile Basin, various sources have identified other
trans-boundary river systems in Africa that are subject to increasing
demands from growing populations, agriculture and industry. These
include the Niger River basin in West Africa (which comprises nine
countries), and the Okavango system, shared by Botswana and Namibia.

According to the Amherst-based Global Water Policy Project in the
United States, about 36 percent of Africa's population currently lacks
access to safe drinking water.

The United Nations Development Programme has also estimated that by
2025, about one in two Africans will be living in countries that are
confronted with water stress or water scarcity. (The term water stress
describes a situation in which each person in a country has access to
less than 1,500 cubic metres of water every year. In cases of water
scarcity, this amount is reduced to 1,000 cubic metres.)

But, has the continent awakened to the fact that water scarcity
presents a challenge that should be tackled with far more vigour than
was previously the case?

The ongoing talks about a more equitable sharing of the Nile's waters
provide some cause for hope, even if they have been peppered with
angry demands and even threats of retaliation.

At present, use of the water is governed by a 1929 agreement (revised
30 years later) that gives Egypt and Sudan the right to determine
whether - and how - other states along the Nile and its tributaries
should use this resource.

Although the accord is clearly a reflection of outdated colonial
realities, attempts to revise it have previously been resisted by
Egypt, which is utterly dependent on the river.

However, during a meeting of the Nile Basin Initiative held in Kenya
Mar. 15 to 19, Egypt's Minister for Water Resources and Irrigation,
Mahmoud Abu-Zeid, adopted a softer stance. "Whatever decisions that
are spelt out in the framework, Egypt will accept," he told IPS.

This framework is the outline of a new water-sharing agreement being
crafted by the initiative, an organisation set up in 1999 by the 10
countries within the Nile Basin in a bid to use the river's water
sustainably. According to the U.N. Department of Information, 160
million people live in the basin.

It remains to be seen whether Abu-Zeid's words reflect a genuine
change of heart, or whether they are simply aimed at calming tempers
while Egypt ponders new strategies to keep as firm a hold on the Nile
as possible.

Nonetheless, water specialist Anthony Turton believes the minister's
new approach constitutes a "break-through of astronomical proportions".

A founding member of the Universities Partnership for Trans-boundary
Waters, Turton also works at the Council for Scientific and Industrial
Research, an institute partially funded by the state that is based in
South Africa's capital, Pretoria.

In an interview with IPS, Turton radiated conviction that
inter-governmental structures to resolve disputes in the use of
trans-frontier rivers can deliver the goods - even in the face of
overwhelming odds.

He points, for example, to the Tri-partite Permanent Technical
Commission established by South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland in
1983. This group met to discuss use of the Nkomati/Maputo river even
as tensions between the three states heated up because of South
African involvement in Mozambique's civil war, and Pretoria's
apartheid policies.

"(It was) a very difficult thing to get off the ground (and) it's
still got a few problems - it's not a bed of roses...But we now have,
in the post Cold War and post-apartheid era, all the foundations for
very significant intergovernmental cooperation in place," he says,
adding "There is not one international river basin in Southern Africa
that does not either already have a commission functioning, or a
commission that's being developed."

He is even upbeat about the situation in the Okavango. Discussions
about this system have centred on plans to construct a pipe to divert
water from the Okavango River to the Namibian capital, Windhoek, to
promote development and give that country greater water security.

The proposal has generated intense debate, not least amongst
conservationists who fear the move might drain water from the Okavango
Delta, one of Africa's great wilderness areas.

Turton says that the pattern of water flow through the Okavango is
well understood: the river experiences two infusions of water - or
'flood pulses' - every year that are of key importance for maintaining
the ecology of the delta.

Engineers know, he adds, that water cannot be taken from the river
before these pulses have been allowed to progress through the length
of the water course.

"The Okavango is misquoted as being a river in conflict...There's a
river basin commission that is functioning extremely well," he notes.

"But for the uninformed person, they tend to misinterpret the
posturing of the different commissioners who make certain statements,
without understanding the underlying dynamics. There is a high level
of cooperation in that river basin."

On the topic of the Nile Basin Initiative, Turton believes it might be
beneficial to shift the focus from water sharing to "benefit sharing".

This amounts to stripping the basin of its political baggage, and
simply considering what the most optimal use of the Nile would be. In
practice, it might even involve governments allowing 'their' share of
the waters to be used by neighbouring states for the greater regional
good.

Ethiopia, with its mountainous terrain, would apparently provide a
perfect location for the construction of a series of small dams for
electricity generation and modest irrigation projects. This
electricity could be used to build an industrial base within a country
that currently is one of the world's poorest. According to the U.N.,
about 80 percent of Ethiopians live below the poverty line of a dollar
a day.

However, the project would probably involve Ethiopia retaining water
that Egyptian officials might argue was theirs, even if the sluice
gates of these dams could be opened to release water to Egypt in times
of need.

The question that begs asking is whether Cairo, with its long history
of acrimonious relations with Addis Ababa, would contemplate a move
that might increase its vulnerability, even while it improved the
fortunes of Ethiopia, and perhaps even the region through making it
appealing to investors.

Last month, states that make up the Niger Basin Initiative met in
France to discuss the future of their particular water system. At
present, the Niger basin supports 10 million people. Summit leader
Mamadou Tandja told delegates to the meeting that by 2020, this figure
will have increased to 200 million - even as the system is feeling the
effects of decreased rainfall.

Heads of state in attendance issued a 'Paris Declaration' at the end
of the two-day talks. Amongst other things, this document commits the
basin's nine member countries to consult each other about any
"infrastructural work" which is done along the river that might alter
its flow.

Pleasant words, but the enormity of the challenge that faces Africa
with water management is not to be underestimated. Above and beyond
working out equitable arrangements for apportioning water resources,
many countries still have to come up with strategies to ensure that
their allotments are wisely used.

While several member states of the Nile Basin Initiative speak of
using their share of the river to increase irrigation - and therefore
food production - it is a well-known fact that irrigation methods are
often grotesquely inefficient.

According to the Global Water Policy Project, only six percent of
Africa's farmland is irrigated at the moment (compared to a global
average of 18 per cent), so there is certainly an argument for
increasing irrigation to address endemic food shortages.

Nonetheless, a number of countries might ultimately find it more
'water efficient' to import food, and use their water to develop the
industrial base that will enable them to do so.

Then there's the matter of pollution.

"Look at Lake Victoria, for example," says Rosemary Rop of Maji na
Ufanisi (Water and Development), a non-governmental organisation in
Kenya. "It has become the toilet for East Africa. People are doing all
sorts of things in the lake - including urinating (and) passing
stools." (Lake Victoria feeds into the Nile.)

"Yet, this is the lake that will be used for water drawing projects
for purposes of agriculture production," she told IPS. "We do not have
the capacity to treat the water. How sustainable will these projects
be if people around the lake will continue dying from cholera due to
lack of sanitation?"

Across the continent in Nigeria, Friday Mai, a fisherman who lives in
the village of Akassa where the Niger flows into the Atlantic, faces
his own pollution-related dilemma. This is mostly as a result of the
fuel that spills into the river as it flows by petroleum installations
in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

"The pollution is affecting us seriously. It is killing our fishes -
it is also affecting our drinking water," he said in an interview. As
a result, "The little resources available have to be scrambled for by
the ever-increasing population, and so you see a struggle where only
the fittest survive."

His words echo those of Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water
Policy Project.

"Historically, water has been both a target and tool of warfare, but
rarely the cause of an outright war between states," she wrote in an
e-mail interview with IPS.

"The likelihood of conflict over water is greater within countries
than between them, particularly as farmers begin to experience
shortages of irrigation water that threaten their livelihoods."

(* With reporting by Joyce Mulama in Nairobi and Sam Olukoya in Lagos.)

Source:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200405200695.html