Is there really no water in Africa? Water and development in Africa: a political battle against a colonialist vision.

 Hi everyone and welcome to this blog !! 

I’ve decided to start by introducing why I think that relations between Africa, water, development and politics are very interesting to study, by questioning the nature of these relationships (co-dependence, causality, effect) in order to identify several general problems that will guide us throughout this blog. 

Engraving of the Berlin Conference, 1885

    I would like to start with what I think is one of the bases of the problems : the European political vision of Africa and the world. Indeed, the conference of Berlin in 1885 brought together representatives of several European countries to decide on the sharing and borders of future African countries (regardless of local populations). The very principle of this meeting is based on a previous principle which was discussed with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 between several European countries that create the idea that a state should have fixed borders to defend. Europe established itself in Africa and imposed its way of conceiving the continent, its political modes of operation and thus shaped the relations between the African countries which are essential for access to water. 

There is also a typically European vision of Africa as an underdeveloped and water-free country that I'll try to questioned. 

    Leaving this historical part, I would like to return to the notion of development, also import of a Europeocentric conception. Indeed, two key development theories attempt to explain the differences between countries : 

• The first is characterised by the texts of W.W Rostow (with the idea of a growth in 5 steps) and that of Truman on underdevelopment and communism. The main thesis is to affirm that development is a path that countries follow one after the other at their own pace. It creates the notions of « underdevelopment" or ‘less advanced countries’. 

• The other theories is supported by geographers S. Amin and Y. Lacoste who asserts that development is the product of exploitation from one part of the world to another and is therefore impossible on a world scale. It is the idea that one country develops by reducing the development capacities of another country. 

  So we have to apply it to Africa and ask how it fits into the global development pattern. Is development possible (yes) and at what cost? The United Nations has established a 17-point sustainable development program, the sixth of which is to promote clean water and sanitation. There is therefore an important link between water and development

    Water then holds a major place both in the political relations between Africa and the rest of the  world but most of all in the internal political relations between the different countries that compose it. Indeed, water is the most precious resources on earth, which is composed of 70% of water. But despite this quantity, water resources  are largely characterised by gross inequality in terms of distribution (10 countries hold more than 1/2 of the world freshwater (Saliu et al. 2011).     

    Africa has 60 international rivers (Wolf, 1999) like the River Nile which is shared by 10 countries.  Indeed, in Africa, every country has at least one international river : 41 have two or more, 15 have five or more ( Saliu et al. 2011). This suggests a risk of water conflicts in many parts of Africa and calls for a regional cooperation in managing river basins. It’s also create a co-dependant relation between countries. 

    To compare : Europe has 71 international rivers shared and there is 200 water based agreement. In Africa, total numbers of water agreement are few. Little wonder why  Sadoff et al. (2003) concluded that Africa’s hydrology alone is a solid basis for an African Union. 

    Furthermore, quantity and quality of water vary spatially and temporally. Out of the 1,4 billion people who have difficulties in accessing water, 450 million are in Africa with 40% of Africans who do not have direct access to freshwater which increases the pressure for a need to international cooperation and risk of conflicts. 

 

    Nearly 200 million people live in Africa’s water stressed countries and, by 2025, it is said that 230 million Africans will be living in countries facing water scarcity and 460 million in water stressed countries whereas there is still a lot of freshwater resources in the continent (despite European conception) (Fakenmark, 1981). So the problem of water supply is not a matter of volume but distribution in time and space which is highly political in a national, continental and global scale and questions water management. In addition, unsafe water is the cause of many deaths in Africa, specially for children (diarrheas diseases, pollution ), and many water conflicts have occurred in recent decades.

    So this blog will focus on the international and transboundary political relations of water in Africa ( conflicts, management, codependence ) and the confrontation of water treatment with the European colonialist vision.  

I hope you'll enjoy ! Thank you for reading !