Water and Food in Africa: An Introduction

Hello, welcome to this blog, a space dedicated to talking about Water and Food in Africa!

Having been living in modern cities around the world for the past 20 years of my life, I have never suffered from accessing water or food. I have taken this for granted, however, in some areas of Africa, the lack of accessibility to these water and food has been an ongoing issue for a long time.

 

Just before we start, I want to put out the fact that Africa is a continent with 54 countries, and they all vary in physical environments, culture and social backgrounds. Africa has always been faced with assumptions being made as stereotypes, I suggest all the readers of this blog to drop these assumptions, and read through this blog with an open mind.

 

Why water and food:

Water is the source of all lives on earth, taking up more than 70% of the earth’s surface. However, only 3% can be used as freshwater. Most of the freshwater is locked up in icebergs with the rest being unevenly distributed around the world. The World Health Organisation identified that 785 million people lack basic access to water, globally, 2 billion people are drinking water that is contaminated with faeces where diseases such as cholera are being transmitted (WHO, 2019). Lacking the basic access to water will automatically lead the population into having a low socio-economic status as people can catch disease more easily and a larger proportion of their spending will be related to health issues. People who live in areas like this would be trapped in this self-reinforcing cycle.

 

The link between water and food is obvious, crops need water to grow. Currently, 70% of freshwater withdrawals globally are being used for agriculture (World Bank, 2020). The increase in population, urbanisation and the worsening level of climate change also puts pressure by increasing the competition of access to fresh water, with the agricultural industry being heavily affected. It is estimated that the agricultural industry needs to grow by 70% in order to meet the basic needs of human beings by 2050 (World Bank, 2020). Furthermore, in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the UN back in 2015, Goal 2 aims at eliminating hunger, achieving food security, promoting sustainable agriculture and Goal 6 aims at ensuring sustainability and sustainable management of water and sanitation (United Nations, 2015). 

 

        

Global agriculture water usage - Source

Why Africa:

Globally, 50% of the people who access water through unsafe sources live in Africa. Only 24% of the whole population have access to clean water in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 72% of the population have to share basic sanitation facilities with other households (UN Water, 2019). In order for people to access water, they have to travel more than 30 minutes, and the water collected might not even be clean. Without access to clean water, they are faced with issues such as poor health conditions, malnutrition, and they are trapped in this vicious cycle because they also lack education and employment opportunities. Africa should be seen as one of the most important points for development, this continent has the least proportion of people with access to freshwater, and capita rates of food are also dropping (FAO).

 

Africa’s shares 10% of global fresh water resources, which is close to its proportion of 12% of the global population. The continent suffers from the uneven distribution of rainfall (Taylor, 2017), with different areas having different physical environments and conditions. 86% of water withdrawals are directed towards agriculture, and this percentage is even higher in the arid and semi-arid parts of Africa (FAO, 2008). 

 

Even though Africa has one of the highest amounts of arable land within its continents, levels of food insecurity and malnutrition still remain at an extremely high level (Jayne et al, 2014). Africa needs to come up with more mitigation and adaptation strategies that can help them in reverting this condition relating to water and food, which is an area I want to further develop within the blog as I continue my investigation.

 

Starting from here, this blog will aim at investigating the link between water and food within Africa, investigating the problem of food insecurity and lack of access to clean water. Linking these two issues with their causes in both the physical and human world, and at the end looking to come up with strategies that can help Africa in escaping from this problem.

 

Thank you for reading, stay tuned!