How does water affects development in Africa

In 2016 millions of people in over a dozen countries (specifically the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa) faced severe drought, resulting in famine and starvation. The WHO warned that Somalia was at the highest risk, and could possibly face its 3 rd famine in 25 years ( Africa News, 2016). These droughts have continued into 2017, hitting the East of Africa and Southern Africa who are feeling the impact of consecutive seasons of droughts that have ‘scorched harvests and ruined lives’ ( IRIN, 2017 ). Livestock deaths and fire sales have meant that pastoralists have little to sell, and cumulative bad harvests make recovery hard for small-scale farmers. But studies suggest that Africa could have billions of cubic meters of untapped groundwater resources? This is the same story for many parts of Africa, where farmers have to rely on irregular rainfall and depleted surface water, while these huge sources of groundwater are ignored. According to research from the British Geologi...

What is ‘virtual’ water? The concept of virtual water was created by Tony Allan in the 1990s and refers to the volume of water needed to produce an agricultural commodity, measured at the place where the product was produced’, i.e. how much water is required to produce 1 ton of grain (Allan, 2003). This water then becomes embedded in this commodity and the water is traded with it. For example, it takes about 1,000 cubic metres of water to produce just 1 ton of grain, and if that ton of grain is exported to a water-stressed country, that country is then spared the economic and political  stress of using 1,000 cubic metres of water, helping to avoid a potential water deficit and political difficulties.. Therefore virtual water is a very successful way for water-deficit economies to remedy their deficits, and not succumb to food insecurity. Figure 1 Virtual water balance by country and direction of major flows (1996 – 2005) Figure 1 shows the virtual water balance per co...

Food and water are inextricably linked, without water there is no food and without food people cannot survive. Water is used in all aspects of food production for irrigating crops, processing food, cleaning food and even transporting food which is why, globally, agriculture accounts for around 70% of water usage in the world today and in some countries is even as high as 90% (OECD, 2016). Food demand is predicted to increase by 60% by 2050 which means that global food production in 2050 should be 60% higher than it is now to satisfy demand (Alexandratos and Bruinsma, 2012). Globally 800 million people suffer from chronic hunger, and of the 34 countries that account for 90% of the global burden of malnutrition, 22 are in Africa (The Lancet, n/d). Therefore central to this discussion is food security in Africa. Africa has roughly 600 million hectares of uncultivated arable land, or 60% of the world’s total, and according to estimates only 4-7% of Africa’s farmland is irrigated (in c...