AFRICA’S WATER INSECURITY AND ITS TRIGGERS
Ciprian Beniamin BENEA, Adrian NEGREA
University of Oradea (International Business Department, Faculty of Economic Sciences) Oradea, Romania
Abstract: Even Africa boasts some of the greatest water resources in the world with large rivers, they are unevenly distributed on the continent, some countries being well endowed with water resources, other being forced to make difficult choices in order to get sustainable access to water; in the same time, precipitations’ regime has the same feature: too much during specific part of the year, lower (or missing altogether) precipitations doubled by high evaporation rate due to high temperatures. Overlapping these natural elements, there have been engineering actions and urban planning – both, during colonial period and after Africa’s countries gained independence – influencing the access to this vital resources in a discriminatory manner. Climate changes doubled with the dynamic population trend on this continent are newcomers, influencing in a negatively way the possible evolution on the continent. Water commodification is another element hitting hard the poor in Africa; as wealthy parts of African cities are well connected to urban water pipes and facilities, poorer parts of the same city totally misses access to water facilities. The poorest people must buy bottled water to get through daily challenges, large part of their incomes being diverted to gaining access to water. The paper intends to bring to East-European audience the problems and challenges the most dynamic continent is going to face, and how can it influence the evolution there, and in other parts of the world, due to migration. Poor access to water, and when available its dubious quality, are other components of African water landscape with great medical consequences and costs at both personal and state level.
Keywords: Africa, cities, dams, colonialism, population, rivers, water
