Water and Politics in Africa

The Lake Chad Basin seen from Apollo 7, October 1968. Source .  Building on from last week’s discussions of transboundary water resources in N RB , this week I will be exploring the Lake Chad Basin (LCB), which is shared by eight riparian countries and consists of a staggering 47 million people, covering 8% of the African continent ( Galeazzi et al ). It is revealed that whilst the LCB faces a plethora of challenges in the form of environmental issues, the lingering effects of colonial legacies and contemporary terrorist activity, unlike the NBA, no effectual transboundary agreement exists.     A common trend in much of my reading, the effects of colonialism remain, proving detrimental in the case of the LCB, heightening access inequalities ( Marthur and Mulwafu ), with a need to decolonise water rights being addressed as vital to much of Africa’s future development ( Van Koppen, 2018 ). The Maga Dam on the Logone-chari River for example, built in Cameroon during th...

As addressed in previous blogs, water in West African nations such as Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire is facing severe challenges in the form of misallocation and pollution, with climate change heightening pressures further ( Kundzewicz et  al.,  2007 ).   These issues are compounded by the transboundary nature of water in the region, with my next two blogs investigating such  shared water resources in  West Africa and the  cooperative strategies employed to alleviate tensions and negotiate more equitable utilisation of water ( Tawfik, 2016 ). It can be noted that 90% of all of Africa’s surface freshwater is in the form of river basins and lakes that are shared by two or more nations ( Goulden et al, 2010 ), with transboundary aquifers (TBAs) representing an estimated 42% of the continental area ( Altchenko and Villholth, 2013 ). I was astonished at the true extent of such transboundary water resources in West Africa specifically, with all countries in this regio...

This week’s blog will not solely look at the role of China’s interventions in West Africa as part of its Africa-wide “Going Global Strategy” as previously discussed, but addresses how my future blogs and wider research must consider the often-missing voices of African scholars.  It is evident that individuals have their own pre-conceptions and positionality, with ideas of Orientalism living on academically, as a part of the West’s political unconscious ( Shatz, 2019 ), and imaginative geographies persisting in the form of ‘othering’ ( Aitken, 2005 ), with themes of ‘saving’ the continent and ‘making poverty history’ ( Mahadeo, 2007 ) pervading throughout Western media and academic writings, perpetuating popular stereotypes ( Michira, 2002 ). The work of Martin Scott was central in highlighting the substantial gaps in analyses of Western media, with a tendency of news outlets and researchers to focus on negative topics ( Scott, 2015 ;  Stabler, 2018 ), ignoring the actualities ...

Having looked at surface water contamination in Ghana last week, this week I will be investigating management of water supplies following conflict, addressing Côte d'Ivoire’s successful water privatisation, and comparing this to the pitfalls of water management in Sierra Leone.     Both Côte d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone share similar stories, having gained independence in the early 1960s and having since been marred by conflict, with  Côte d'Ivoire's  armed rebellion in 2002 splitting the nation in two ( HRW, 2011 ), and Sierra Leone’s  1991 to 2002  Civil War claiming some 70,000 casualties and displaced 2.6 million people ( UNDP ).  UN Troops in  Côte d'Ivoire . Source .  This persistent unrest has had numerous adverse implications on sanitation and water quality, with mass-urbanisation following the conflict placing a strain on sewage and sanitation facilities in urban areas, heightening the risk of water-borne diseases such as Guin...

Following on from last week's wider-scale introduction to the politics of water and development in West Africa, this week's blog will centre specifically around Ghana's water resources and the challenges faced by contamination, a key component of inadequate water supply  ( Adela na et al, 2008 , Fayiga et al, 2017 ), observed here as chiefly  arising  due to insufficient governance.    In terms of surface water resources, Ghana is well endowed, with Lake Volta being the largest artificial reservoir in the world based on surface area  ( Gansah et al, 2016 ). The nation’s geology however, dominated by crystalline rocks, means groundwater flow is heavily restricted to joints and fractures within crystalline rock formations ( BGS ), resulting in surface water being the central source of drinking-water for  five million people  in the Northern regions  ( Mintz et al., 2001 ).  The Volta River System.  Solomon et al, 2020 .  Moreover...

My name is Sebastian Alsina-Olaizola and over the course of several weeks, I will explore the nature of politics and water in Africa, focussing in particular on West Africa, which consists of 16 unique nations and 400 million people.  I have opted to look at the political aspects of water, specifically, "water conflict", defined as, “Any disagreement or dispute over or about water, where external social, economic, legal, political or military intervention is needed to resolve the problem” ( Ashton, 2007 ), having recently returned from a year abroad in California. Here, I gained a brief insight into the politicised nature of water, even on a continent that holds the largest share of the world’s total freshwater ( Gaye and Tindimugaya, 2019 ). I was able to kayak down the Colorado River, and learnt of the historic disagreements over the Compact Agreement which distributes use between the seven states the river runs through, as well as damming by the US, that has led to the riv...