Water and sanitation in Africa.

This year, the theme of World Toilet Day (WTD), an international campaign to help tackle the sanitation crisis is  sustainable sanitation and climate change . The theme highlights the effects of climate change on water access and the sanitation service chain which is a central challenge in Africa.  Firstly, climate change has caused annual rainfall and water availability to become less predictable ( Trentberth 2011 ), increasing the number of water-stressed regions which is a particular concern with the spatial and temporal variations of rainfall in Africa ( Damkjaer and Taylor 2016) . Furthermore, extreme weather events such as flash flooding are perpetuated which have increased across southern Africa dramatically since 1980 , shown in Figure 1.  WEF  considers these to be one of the most likely risks to food production over the next ten years. Figure 1,  shows the presence of climate related events in the last 30 years.   UNICEF 2020 How does this affect sanitation provision? The eve

Last week I spoke of the disparity in access to water and sanitation across the African Continent. In order to be more specific, this blog will analyse rural and urban divides.  When we think of "rural areas" in the UK, we think "escape to the country", and enjoy the peaceful views shown in Beatrix  Potter's  'Peter Rabbit' of the Lake District or strolling in Derbyshire as depicted in Jane  Austen's  'Sense and Sensibility'. We don't consider the infrastructural challenge of connecting these rural areas to municipal water networks in the UK let alone those larger  in land size  which many African countries are.  As early as 1977,   Dudley Seers   and   Michael Lipton   presented an urban bias to development. In both their accounts, they suggest that the greatest division we should be concerned with exists within countries themselves. Similarly,   Mellor (1976)   also illustrates the neglect of the rural sector due to the focus on enhanci

What do you think about regarding water and sanitation in Africa? Let's start with water. Africa as a continent is often generalised as a place of water scarcity, however, there is a wide range in physical and human factors which has caused a differentiation in water access across the 46 countries.  For instance, the Congo region (central Africa) alone has more renewable freshwater resources per capita than the USA!  Moreover,  Fela Kuti , a Nigerian music legend has drawn attention to water access through his lyrics;  "there's water underground, water underground and water in the air... but look to your left, look to your right, you can't see it" .  Some of you might be confused, maybe even shocked by these mind- boggling  facts.  In order to understand this, let's dive into a few of the juicy specifics of the physical reasons for this; groundwater storage. First, we need to understand how and what stores this water. The term you're looking for is an