Heavy rains from July to September have led to catastrophic flooding across parts of Africa, with the worst-hit areas in Sudan, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.



A recent report from World Weather Attribution (WWA), a group of international scientists studying extreme weather, links repeated floods in Africa&#8217;s worst-hit areas to both climate change and poor water management.



This year’s floods have been deadly, with over 2,000 people losing their lives and millions more forced to leave their homes. Many of these areas faced severe flooding just two years ago, meaning some communities were still recovering when this year’s rains hit.



According to the WWA, global temperatures have warmed by 1.3°C since the industrial age began, and this is making extreme weather events, like the Sahel’s heavy rains, much more frequent.



The group’s scientists noted that this increase in temperature meaning intense rainfall, which leads to severe floods, is becoming far more common. In Sudan, for example, scientists now expect this kind of flood to occur every three years.



In addition to climate change, long-standing problems in the region are making the effects of the floods even more disastrous. Many of the worst-hit areas in Sudan, Chad and Nigeria have been affected by poverty, conflict, and outdated infrastructure. According to the WWA, this situation leaves millions of people vulnerable because they often live in areas that lack strong flood defenses or early warning systems, like sirens or mobile alerts.



Scientists warn that if the world’s average temperature rises to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, these severe floods could happen even more often. In the future, it is likely that 30-day periods of extreme rain will become a normal part of life in the Sahel region, which includes countries like Sudan, Nigeria, and Niger.



To protect against future floods, the WWA report emphasizes that &#8220;there is an urgent need to drastically improve water management and reduce vulnerability to seasonal rainfall&#8221;. For example, in Sudan, there are important structures like the Arba’at dam, which helps manage water levels.



&#8220;The transboundary nature of the river systems in sub-saharan Africa requires coordination between neighbouring countries, which has been strained and hinders comprehensive flood management and early warning systems. To reduce flood risks, rehabilitation of damaged infrastructure should prioritise climate-smart design, including incorporating resilient materials and construction techniques and limiting construction in flood-prone areas,&#8221; the report adds.

Floods kill 13 in Nigeria

More Floods? Scientists Warn Of Intensifying Climate Risks In Africa’s Vulnerable Regions

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="1280" src="">



The United Nations Deputy Secretary General, Ms Amina Mohammed recently commended “<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/dsg/statement/2020-09-25/deputy-secretary-generals-remarks-the-high-level-event-beyond-covid-19-public-private-partnerships-for-the-sdgs-model-for-building-back-better-prepared-for-delivery" target="_blank" data-id="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/dsg/statement/2020-09-25/deputy-secretary-generals-remarks-the-high-level-event-beyond-covid-19-public-private-partnerships-for-the-sdgs-model-for-building-back-better-prepared-for-delivery" data-type="URL">Kenya’s exemplary role in its response to COVID-19 and in advancing Agenda 2030</a>”. 



On Monday, 28 September 2020, the President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta hosted a national conference on COVID 19. I was invited to speak about Kenya’s response, and without equivocation I restate what I said&#8211;Kenya deserves an A + rating. 



Here’s why!



When the COVID-19 pandemic struck Asia, Europe and the US, experts began to worry about what it would do to poor countries, with predictions of thousands of deaths, serious infections as well as the near-total collapse of already ailing health systems. 



How would Africa, characterised by crowded living conditions, widespread poverty and a lack of basic hygienic facilities deal with such a devastating and largely unknown pathogen? 



Months later, such horror scenarios have not materialised and the question has changed to why most of Africa is seeing comparably less devastation. As explained by President Uhuru Kenyatta during the National Covid-19 Conference, “the reason why we have managed to flatten the curve is because Kenyans have exercised an impressive civic responsibility and duty.” 



A reality that tends to be lost in all the discussions about this novel coronavirus in Kenya is just how much pummelling the country’s social and economic structures have received lately. 2020 was a particularly difficult year for Kenya. A triple crisis, coming on the heels of a protracted period of droughts, a cholera epidemic and not to underestimate the spectre of cross-border terror attacks, which dented one of Kenya’s biggest foreign exchange earners-tourism.



Consider this. In 2017, nearly half of the counties of Kenya w<a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20171023130503-xo7f4/" data-type="URL" data-id="https://news.trust.org/item/20171023130503-xo7f4/">as reeling from the effects of probably the worst drought in the last 20 years</a>. With nearly 3.4 million people food insecure, Kenya’s food security prognosis looked gloomy, with climate change and natural resource depletion set to pose even greater risks in the long term. 



Often unnoticed is the insidious effect on the country&#8217;s economy, with experts estimating that there have been, &#8220;12 serious droughts since 1990&#8221;. The average annual costs of the damage caused estimated at around KHS 125 billion ($1.25 billion) &#8212; with each drought reducing the country&#8217;s <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/kenya/insuring-against-climate-risk-kenya" data-type="URL" data-id="https://reliefweb.int/report/kenya/insuring-against-climate-risk-kenya">Gross Domestic Product by an average of 3.3 percent</a>. 



The two consecutive national elections in 2017 also took a massive financial toll. 



Given the dire financial situation, it is quite remarkable, the resilience, tenacity and optimism, Kenya has displayed in the face of such adversity, and done so with their head held high, with stoicism and compassion in its fight against the triple threat. 



Since the beginning of the year, Kenya has gone through a series of unprecedented crises, where within six months it has experienced the worst desert locust invasion in 70 years, heavy unusual flooding that has left scores of people dead and thousands displaced, and the pandemic that is taking a toll on health services and the economy. 



Aware of the technological and financial handicaps facing the health sector, the government has responded commendably in leading the fight against COVID-19, from mandating physical distancing to wearing of masks, promoting hand and respiratory hygiene, promptly dealing with rumours, to specialised facilities in hospitals, to working with industry to deliver local equipment such as PPEs, to delivering economic relief to impacted families. And above all not allowing politics to hijack the wisdom of science.



In about six months after the first case was reported, Kenya increased the number of infectious diseases isolation beds from eight to just over 7,000 across the country, thus keeping the casualty rates low. This was a remarkable feat achieved through unity of purpose between the national and county governments. 



The government rolled out moderate stimulus packages to help families ride out the economic turbulence and cushion companies from financial shocks. The Treasury instituted tax relief for low-income earners and reduced VAT rates as well as corporate sales tax for businesses. In a country already facing slow GDP growth, these were commendable actions of national self-sacrifice and coming together in times of crises. 



When you look at some of the most developed countries in the world, buckling to the microscopic and highly virulent coronavirus and their national responses are properly examined, Kenya does score an ‘A+’ in how quickly and decisively the government acted in the COVID-19 crisis. Measures such as travel restrictions, curfews and school closures were implemented early in the country, before the number of infections rose. 



As testament to the spirit of coming together to confront a common adversary, there was broad support from the public for these measures. In social media and elsewhere, citizens were quick to express responsible outrage where they felt those responsible for the response at various levels were not keeping to the expected standards. 



This grit and determination to rise to the occasion even where resources are hard to come by was key in getting on board international donor agencies and private sector to mobilise funding to support the national response. The UN in Kenya repurposed $45 million from the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) towards the COVID response, and deployed over 150 staff and volunteers to the government response structures. 



In partnership with the Government of Kenya, the UN launched a Flash Appeal to mobilize $267.5 million to support more than 10 million vulnerable people affected by the pandemic, of which nearly US$ 60 million was raised. An additional US$ 10 million dollars was allocated by the UN Secretary General, Mr. Antonio Guterres, to construct a new specialized 100 bed COVID 19 hospital in Nairobi, which will remain as additional capacity even after the pandemic is over. 



The UN in Kenya has prepared a COVID-19 socioeconomic response and recovery plan to address the health care system, social protection, employment opportunities and social cohesion. The recovery plan will be implemented in the next two years and will cost $155 million to focus on recovering better from the pandemic for the Sustainable Development Goals.



The country is still in the maelstrom of the pandemic. The devastating consequences of the pandemic have not fully played out and important challenges remain, some wrought by the pandemic but many that continued long before, such as high health care costs for millions of Kenyans, gender inequalities, widespread poverty, youth unemployment, environmental degradation, corruption and terrorism. 



The country must converge at every level to address these threats today or suffer the consequences tomorrow. Recovery will be made much tougher by the economic toll of COVID-19 as well as an exhausted and depleted health system. 



Still, the pandemic has shown that Kenya can overcome partisanship, think anew and work on short and longer-term sustainable development priorities towards ‘building back better’, with more resilience to future shocks. 



As the<a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/dsg/statement/2020-09-25/deputy-secretary-generals-remarks-the-high-level-event-beyond-covid-19-public-private-partnerships-for-the-sdgs-model-for-building-back-better-prepared-for-delivery" data-type="URL" data-id="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/dsg/statement/2020-09-25/deputy-secretary-generals-remarks-the-high-level-event-beyond-covid-19-public-private-partnerships-for-the-sdgs-model-for-building-back-better-prepared-for-delivery"> UN Deputy Secretary General, Ms Mohammed</a> said, “I am convinced that Kenya will continue demonstrating that results and transformation are possible and I call upon all of you to double your efforts to invest at scale in those critical interventions that will unlock benefits across all the goals, to make bold choices, to take decisive action and to leave no one behind in your pursuit of a better future&#8221;. 



Kenyans can be fully assured of the commitment of the United Nations to overcome every adversity, leapfrog socio-economic recovery and progress to realise Vision 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.



Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya. He has served in various parts of the world with UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP, UNOPS, UN Peacekeeping and the Red Cross Movement. A decorated Special Forces veteran, he is an alumnus of Princeton University. Follow him on twitter-<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/sidchat1?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank">@sidchat1</a>

Triple Threat

The Triple Humanitarian Crisis and Why Kenya Deserves An A + in its Response

Last year unleashed some catastrophic weather across the world. At the beginning of 2017, Australia experienced one of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-39175668" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hottest summers on record</a> in Sydney and Brisbane, followed by a killer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/04/extreme-heat-warnings-issued-europe-temperatures-pass-40c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">summer heatwave</a> across southern Europe and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/11/us/california-wildfires/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wildfires</a> triggered by heat in California.
The Atlantic hurricane season was particularly active, recording three mighty category 5 hurricanes – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/13/global-warming-made-hurricane-harvey-deadly-rains-three-times-more-likely-research-shows" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Harvey</a>, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/specials/hurricane-irma" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Irma</a> and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/specials/weather/hurricane-maria" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Maria</a> – resulting in significant casualties. The cost of the damage across the American continent was in excess of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42608161" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$260 billion</a>.
At the same time, the 2017 monsoon season brought considerable rains to the Indian subcontinent, and resulted in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/30/mumbai-paralysed-by-floods-as-india-and-region-hit-by-worst-monsoon-rains-in-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener">devastating floods</a> in parts of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh (one of the most flood vulnerable countries in the world), causing more than 1,000 deaths.
At the end of 2017, we could look back at the statistics and see that globally it was the warmest <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/what-is-el-nino-la-nina" target="_blank" rel="noopener">non-El Nino</a> year on record. El-Nino is the warming part of the <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/what-is-el-nino-la-nina" target="_blank" rel="noopener">El-Nino Southern Oscillation</a> (ENSO) cycle which affects global ocean and atmospheric currents and can create powerful storms and hurricanes.
In a world that is getting warmer, what does that mean and what might 2018 hold for weather across the globe? Are we destined to see more and more of these “unusual” and catastrophic weather events which result in significant devastation? What effect will climate change have on our weather and will this become the new norm?
<h2>Looking at the facts</h2>
First, we need to untangle the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">difference</a> between weather and climate change, something president Trump seems <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/28/politics/trump-climate-change-analysis/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">to confuse</a>. In a nutshell, the difference is time. Weather is the conditions in the atmosphere over a short period of time. Climate is how the atmosphere behaves over a longer period of time. When we talk about climate change, that generally means changes in long-term averages of daily levels of temperature and rainfall. So we may see a change in average or typical weather over a number of years, but we can still experience extremes in any one year.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/10/03/professor-saved-african-rainforest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Professor Who Saved An African Rainforest</a>
Recently, scientists have used <a href="https://www.munichre.com/topics-online/en/2017/topics-geo/rapid-attribution" target="_blank" rel="noopener">robust event attribution</a> where natural or human influences on particular events are studied to understand the role <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-climate-change-58.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">climate change</a> may play in particular weather events. This can help support future regional contingency planning.
This also helps us to understand the role climate change has played in past events such as heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, or extreme flooding and some of their large-scale drivers such as ocean and atmospheric patterns of warming and cooling, like El-Nino.
Looking at the past there are many factors which control the onset, spread and eventual impact of a big weather event. But not all of these factors are climatic and many relate to things such as urbanisation, engineering interventions or land-use changes.
<h2>What the future looks like</h2>
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (<a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IPCC</a>), an international body set up to assess the science of climate change, we can continue to expect <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an increase</a> in the average global temperature. That means we will be experiencing warmer years in the future.
But at the same time, we may see changes to the extremes, which could become more frequent in the case of high temperature or heavy rainfall, or less frequent in the case of extreme cold. This means that the distribution, occurrence and expected averages of our weather (for example, temperature and rain) throughout the year may change, resulting in warmer years on average with more extreme hot days, and fewer extreme cold days in the future.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2015/08/01/suspended-barbed-wire-impaled-car-part/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Suspended By Barbed Wire And Impaled On A Car Part During Flood</a>
This pattern has a direct link to such phenomena as heatwaves, which are caused by more extreme temperatures. The links to droughts or periods of extreme low flows in rivers are more complex. <a href="http://www.ipcc-data.org/guidelines/pages/gcm_guide.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Global Circulation Models</a> (GCMs) – a collection of numerical models that provide a 3D analysis of global climate interactions such as atmosphere, oceans, ice and land – <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14196?utm_source=Daily+Carbon+Briefing&amp;utm_campaign=fe1e50b881-cb_daily&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_876aab4fd7-fe1e50b881-303473869" target="_blank" rel="noopener">predict</a> increases in temperatures for some regions, such as southern Europe.
In terms of tropical cyclones, the effects of climate change on these phenomena is an active area of research as the processes are complex. For example, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Clausius-Clapeyron-equation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Clausius-Clapeyron</a> relationship which can be related to the water vapour-carrying capacity of the atmosphere, may have an impact on the strength and intensity of such storms.
The relationship states that for every degree rise in temperature, the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere increases by 7%, so in a warming ocean, the air above the water has a much greater capacity to hold water and thus store more rain that can feed more powerful storms.
But sinking cold air from the upper atmosphere may prevent storms from rising in the first place. If this happens more frequently with climate change then we can expect fewer such storms. That means in the future there may be fewer tropical cyclones forming, but those that do will be stronger and more intense.
<h2>Wet, wet, wet</h2>
In a warming world, we can expect it to get wetter. The distribution of the rainfall throughout the year could change as we experience longer, drier spells, although when rain falls it may be in intense bursts. Recent <a href="https://research.ncl.ac.uk/media/sites/researchwebsites/convex/CONVEX_downpours.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research</a> by Newcastle University analysed the results from finer scale GCMs climate projections and suggests we may expect more intense summer rainfall in the UK in future. <a href="http://ukclimateprojections.metoffice.gov.uk/24125" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New climate projections</a> from GCMs are being prepared for the UK to help predict what the future climate may look like.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/04/01/africa-heating-not-good-way/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Africa Is Heating Up And Not In A Good Way</a>
Flooding from intense rainfall or river sources has many complex drivers which cause the damage in catchment areas. For example, land use changes (such as intensive farming practices or deforestation) and the degree of urbanisation both play a part in flood risk. Recent <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/9/2/103/htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research</a> for the UK suggests that we will see an increase in the frequency of extreme river flooding.
So what can we expect for 2018? Already Australia is experiencing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/world/australia/heat-wave.html?_r=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">extreme heat</a>, while the eastern seaboard of the US is suffering a <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/1/3/16845048/winter-storm-2018-bomb-cyclone-blizzard-florida-new-york-boston-new-england" target="_blank" rel="noopener">severe cold spell</a>, and the west coast <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/11/us/southern-california-mudslides/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">devastating mudslides</a> that have killed 17 people. So far 2018 seems to be picking up right where 2017 left off.
Governments need to recognise and absorb that extreme weather across the globe is likely to become more common and start to adapt accordingly, rather than treat it as shocking one-off events. Otherwise we risk increasing loss of life and environmental damage in the future. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lindsay-beevers-435129" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lindsay Beevers</a>, Professor/Chair Futures Forum, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/heriot-watt-university-947" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heriot-Watt University</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.

Will the weather get worse in 2018?

It was a painful ordeal for a parent.
In most African cultures, rain is a sign of blessings. The irony is, in this case, the poorest of the poor, who need the water the most, are the ones who hurt the most when it rains.
Three-year-old Everlate Chauke, her father Shadrack, and mother Cynthia were in their makeshift home in Alexandra, next to the Jukskei River, six kilometers from Africa’s richest square mile, Sandton, when it started to pour. When water filled their shack, they climbed a tree for safety; Cynthia on one branch, Everlate and Shadrack on the other. The branch broke and Everlate fell into the raging waters. Shadrack jumped in after her, but couldn’t find her. What started as a celebration, amid South Africa’s longest drought ever, ended in death and despair. Little Everlate was found 10 kilometers downstream, almost three weeks later.
The Chauke family is among 150 other people who lost their homes and property in the downpour at the Setswetla settlement in Alexandra. Several other people around Johannesburg died during the floods and many others lost their property. Yet, Africa may one day go to war over the lack of water. Too much water can take lives – yet so can the lack of water that one day Africa may go to war over. It has already happened elsewhere in the world.
The Khedevite of Egypt invaded Ethiopia, in the mid-1870s, to gain control of the Nile River. The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir is largely about control of the Indus River. For now, for most of Africa, it’s a king-sized headache.
On March 10, major dams in Africa were down. In Lesotho, Katse Dam, the highest dam in Africa built in the Maluti Mountains, was 53.6% full; Swaziland’s dams stood at 75.8% and in Zimbabwe, Kariba Dam, one of the biggest in Africa at 128-meter tall and 579-meter long, stood at 32.8%. Water levels in Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya and most of the rest of Africa remain low. The UN warns of a looming crisis.
“Let us commit to invest in water security as a means to ensure long-term international peace and security,” says  former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Ratings agency, Moody’s, early last year, went as far as to say a lack of water was causing rising inflation, risking a weak South African economy going into recession. It is so concerning that, Cape Town’s Executive Mayor, Patricia de Lille, declared the city of the rich a disaster zone. At the time of going to print, the city had just over 100 days of useable water left.
The problem is the average household uses about 20,000 liters of water a month but Cape Town’s top water wasters, located on Haywood Road‚ Crawford‚ used a shocking 702,000 liters in one month. The city is naming and shaming all water wasters in an attempt to ensure they comply. On February 1, the city introduced harsher water restrictions; meaning everyone should use 30% less water or face a R5,000 ($380) fine and a higher bill. It is helping.
On March 6, in the Western Cape province, dam levels had dropped to 31.5%, which was 1.6% down from the week before. If the situation does not change, the province could run out of fresh water in dams by 2019.
“With the last 10% of a dam’s water mostly not being useable, dam levels are effectively at approximately 21.5%. Consumption has broken through the 800 million liter barrier for the first time to 783 million liters of collective use per day, but we have still not achieved the new collective usage target of 700 million liters per day,” says the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services, Councillor Xanthea Limberg.
Water Scarcity: Cooperation or Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa?, an article in Foreign Policy Journal written by Lisdey Espinoza Pedraza, International Relations lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, and International Relations researcher, Markus Heinrich, suggests while Africa struggles to quench its thirst, some regions of the world have ample supply of this scarce resource.
“While 70% of the planet is covered in water, only 2.5% of it is fresh water. Of this, only 1% is easily accessible, as much of the world’s freshwater is trapped in glaciers and ice caps. Compounding this is that this scarce resource is very unevenly distributed,” say Pedraza and Heinrich.
One problem is Africa is not pouring money where the rivers flow.
Water projects account for a meagre 1.3% of total infrastructure investment in Africa, according to the Africa Construction Trends 2016 report by Deloitte Africa. The report notes that there are only 15 water projects across the continent, valued at $4.8 billion, in comparison to 271 non-water infrastructure projects valued at $319.2 billion. The water sector is thirsty for investment. But it’s not that simple.
“If you are asking the private sector to finance water, what’s the return, who is going to pay them and how are they going to collect their money? Water is a basic human right. This also colors how people treat water from a drinking point of view. Should you be paying for something that falls from the sky? In many instances, the charges that cities levy on water are often far too low from a cost recovery basis,” says John-Pierre Labuschagne, Infrastructure &amp; Capital Projects Leader at Deloitte.
According to Labuschagne, water does have an opportunity for investors.
“The economics behind it though is what makes it difficult… The trick is how do we get the water from the dams to the cities? The water network is crucial. It needs to be rehabilitated and also expanded,” he says.
Ethiopia is leading the way to a solution with its $5-billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project.
Located about 500 kilometers north west of the capital, Addis Ababa, in the region of Benishangul-Gumuz along the Blue Nile, it is expected to be completed in July this year. It will be the largest dam in Africa at 1,800 meters long, 155 meters high and with a total volume of 74 billion cubic meters. The dam will generate some 6,000 megawatts of electricity which will be sold to neighboring countries and is expected to aid Ethiopia’s growing economy.
This world’s ninth biggest hydroelectric project dam, however, has been under fire because it will flood 1,680 square kilometers of forest, displace 20,000 people and possibly affect the flow of the Nile River, which is shared by Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.
In Namibia, 4,860 kilometers south of the Nile, the answer is desalination.
Dewald Duvenhage, General Manager: Engineering Services at the Swakopmund municipality in Namibia, says desalination may be the only solution for the water problems Africa faces. The only problem is it uses a lot of energy.
“If the energy is renewable – solar panel farms, wind generation, concentrated solar power – all with suitable storage to allow 24-hours-a-day operation – then yes, it is sustainable. Interesting also is that all the large luxury shipping passenger liners are producing their water with desalination,” he says.
Sustainable, yes. Cheap, not so much.
The Namibian government is considering desalination with a special Cabinet committee, but media reports indicate that about N$57 billion ($4.36 billion) may need to be spent on it.
“Desalination water is presently exclusively used for mining water supply, yet since the same pipes transport and the same reservoirs store the water, we are all drinking desalination water mixed with borehole water as far as Henties Bay, Swakopmund and Arandis is concerned,” says Duvenhage.
He says we should use water responsibly but should also consider other avenues.
“We may consider recycling – but given the complications when industrial waste pollutes water, it is cheaper and physically simpler to desalinate seawater than to recycle sewage back to potable water. Yet we should first ask whether there is anything we can do to solve the energy supply crisis. No energy, no desalination, no water,” he says.
Professor Neil Armitage, the Head of the University of Cape Town’s Urban Water Management research unit, agrees that desalination is expensive and power-hungry.
“Most of our power is generated by thermal power stations that contribute to greenhouse gases contributing to global warming and contributing to climate change which is what caused the problem in the first place,” says Armitage.
That’s not all. For many years, Australia had a drought and opted for desalination plants, which according to Armitage, would cost between AUD2 billion ($1.5 billion) and AUD4 billion ($3 billion). As Australia was in the process of commissioning them, it rained.
“There were major floods, people were washed away in cars, reservoirs filled up and the residents said they don’t want to pay for the water when they can have water at a quarter of the price from the tap,” he says.
To do a similar project in Johannesburg or Cape Town, according to Armitage, may cost anything between R30 billion ($2.3 billion) and R50 billion ($3.8 billion).
“Someone proposed to me that we should build an undersea pipeline from the Congo River to Cape Town… another said can’t we get water from the Orange River to Cape Town… these are very expensive for something that can be managed if we change the way we manage our water.”
Armitage says two to three times more rain falls on Cape Town than is distributed to the people. The rest of it is wasted.
“There are two ways of dealing with that. One is rain water harvesting where you have a rain barrel taking water straight off your roof. This is very common in farming rural areas… the biggest problem though is that Cape Town’s climate has long dry summers and relatively short winters. You need more water in summer time than winter… If you are going to make rain water harvesting to work, you will need rainfall all year round.”
Another option is storm water harvesting.
“If we can find a way of harvesting that, storing it and treating it, then there is potential to supply all the cities with storm water. The reality is, it is very difficult. Storage and quality is a problem. Storm water can be very polluted,” he says.
It has worked in Singapore. For years, the country heavily relied on imported water from Malaysia and catchment water. Now it also has NEWater, produced from treated purified used water and desalination.
“In Cape Town, we have a natural sand aquifer on the Cape Flats. We are doing research to see if we can’t store water underground for periods of time; could be a month, six months or a year. It has been done in Cape Town for many years up on the coast where, for about 40 years, water to [the Western Cape town] Atlantis came from harvested storm water, treated sewage affluent put into the ground and then taken out again after a period of time… we are proposing to do something similar but on a bigger scale.”
It’s time Africa pours more money in its water, before a long dry season could lead to war.
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Water , The new oil?

June 3, 2015 is a day etched into the memory of Ghanaians. It is a day that floods swept through Accra in hours, claiming more than 200 lives, gutting buildings, destroying cars and setting off a devastating explosion at a petrol station.
Similar to the previous days, it started raining at dawn. On this particular day, I remember stepping out of my flat and saw rainfall heavier than usual. I rushed to the car ready to face the day with my designated driver, my manager. We were running late for our meetings and decided on a route that would save time, the Kwame Nkrumah Circle. The already eroded roads had started forming pools and the rain made it impossible to see clearly. Through my impaired vision, I could see the heavy wind blow billboards over and informal traders scurry to nearby shelters to escape the incessant thrashing of the downfall.
<div id="attachment_3863" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3863" class="size-medium wp-image-3863" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AP20150606APS3396-1024x683-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Ghana Gas Station Explosion</div>
The police officers who normally stood on the roadside to do the job of the faulty traffic lights had chosen to neglect their post. This created a massive jam.
As we battled through the sluggish traffic, chaos erupted and a mass of people ran towards us in panic. Amid the confusion, we decided to follow suit and turn the car around but the congestion made it impossible. Up ahead, I saw cars floating in the murky water that was overflowing from the poorly built drainage systems. Across the road, a woman running towards shelter with her baby, lost her footing in the thigh-high water and disappeared. Two men dived in to try and save them.
Panic set in and I realized all the cars around us had suddenly become floatation devices. We decided to make a dash for it but the doors were jammed. My manager was yelling for help but gave up. As the cold water rushed in the car, my manager frantically tried to break the window. Our fear rose with the water.
On my left, I saw two women vanish under the water as they were hit by a floating car. I thought to myself, “this is it Peace, get ready to die.” As the water reached waist level, the welcome sound of shattering glass came. Three young men had smashed the back window and were yelling for us to climb out. The air was heavy with trepidation. People on the rooftops were screaming out directions to people on the street turned rescuers. We dragged our feet through the gushing water and howling wind to reach safety. Some were standing on the roofs of their cars, trying to use them as lifeboats.
As we continued moving away from the car, I lost my footing, on what was once a sturdy pavement, into what felt like a bottomless pit. I had dropped into an open gutter and felt a sharp pain in my back. The brown water turned red as everything faded to black.
I woke up in a hospital bed. My manager, who helped save me, told me that I fell in a ditch, was suspended by barbed wire and impaled by a floating car part. A couple of stitches, several staples and two blood transfusions later, I am lucky to be able to recount the event.
The next day, a stone’s throw from where we almost died, many others did. A petrol station was engulfed in flames following an explosion. It is thought that petrol seeped into the flood water and was ignited by a spark from a generator. It resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people sheltering from torrential rain. I wondered if it had been any of the women I saw the day before, the women who believed they had made it to safety.
I will never forget these days. I know how close I came to joining the hundreds that lost their lives. I am both angry and sad. I’m angry because there is no reason that proper drainage systems could not have been built in an area which has a history of flooding. I’m sad because I know the problem will not be solved soon.
I am also proud to be a Ghanaian. I witnessed heroism from strangers who risked their lives to save people they did not know. I saw a community pull together to fight for the most fundamental human right, the right to life. The media might forget these tragedies, I won’t. To those unsung heroes, Ghana is forever indebted to you.

Tag: Floods

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