The Hydropolitics of Africa

I n light of the recent COP26 talk in Glasgow, I wanted to touch upon climate change, reflect on what African nations got out of these talks, and dissect what this may mean in the future.   With the 26th United Nations climate change conference (COP26) having come to a close, media surrounding it is slowly dissipating - a win for the organisers considering that it wasn't well-received by many, with popular opinions stating that it 'fell short'. Already the climate summit was downplayed by world leaders in the run-up to it, and part of the problem for this was that there was no major headline agreement planned to come out of this - this COP was about determining whether the Paris agreement of '1.5 degree' global warming was still attainable.  Photo depicting 2015, 3-day rain that displaced 0.3 million people in Malawi ( Ashley Cooper/Getty images ) Climate change issues are already projected to hit African countries the hardest despite being the continent least respo...

Following on from last week's blog post , we will now look to examine the implications of water-based conflicts and offer up some of the solutions posed by various academic discourses. ICRC 2016 --- "They shouted 'Get up!' and because nobody moved they started shooting" ( ICRC, 2016 ). Chilling words from a teenager Mahamdou Ali who recalls his time during a conflict in northeast Nigeria. This is but one account of a multitude of conflicts between Nigeria and Chad on the Lake Chad Basin. The shrinking of the lake has contributed to regional instability within the states in several ways. As the lake has shrunk, the water has shifted up towards Cameroon and Chad, whilst the Nigerian and Nigerien section has dried up ( Owonikoko, 2020 ). This has led to millions of people being displaced and forced to cross national borders to access water. As borders get crossed with no regard, various socio-economic and political issues arise which lead to interstate tension. In t...

W ar? What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. - iconic lyrics from the song 'War' by African American soul musician Edwin Starr. Unfortunately, it's not quite the militaristic war that people fear but rather one of aquatic nature. Water wars in Africa is a complex topic, therefore this will be a two-part blog post. This week we will look to break it down into two sections: Why is water leading to conflict? What causes these conflicts to emerge? --- Why is water so important? 'Many of the wars of the 20th century were about oil but wars of the coming 21st century will be about water unless we change the way in which we manage it' as put by Ismail Sergalin ( 2009 ), the then vice-president of the World Bank. Water is not just a 'commodity' but is a cornerstone of life. Water shortages reduce food production, aggrandize poverty and can reduce the capacity of a state to govern. Agriculture is accountable for over 67% of the earth's total water withdrawal ( ...

C olonialism. A bad word. The British. Evil. Words that seem to be thrown about these days and synonymous with each other. Is this true? To an extent, but it seems the GERD conflict as highlighted in last week’s blog post does not paint colonialism in a great light. Tensions over the Nile date back centuries, with Egypt, initially attempting to gain control over the Nile in 1874, sparking the Ethio-Egyptian war ( Jesman, 1959 ). Following this agreements were signed in 1929 and 1959 between Egypt and Sudan, which gave Cairo near-complete control of the Nile ( Abdalla, 1971 ). Here lies the problem - these treaties were illegitimate to the existence of you guessed it - colonialism. During the 'Scramble for Africa' controlling the Nile resource was a major colonial goal for the British ( Tekuya, 2020 ).  Figure 1: Cartoon graphic depicting the 'Scramble for Africa ' The Nile Water treaties were agreements between the British and their colonial counterparts (Sudan, Kenya...