/ 10 November 2006

Every drop counts

It is predicted that by the end of the century, a barrel of water will cost more than a barrel of oil. In cities such as Dar es Salaam and Delhi, the taps often run dry and women spend hours every day looking for water to buy from tankers and vendors. In the rural areas this is often not an option, and available water must be harvested from rainfall or rivers without wasting a precious drop.

“In Africa, 90% of food is produced by farmers who rely solely on rainfall for their crops,” explains Dr Hubert Savenije, professor of hydrology at the Delft University of Technology. “We need to work with cheap, new technologies that allow them to do more with the same amount of rainfall.” He says there are relatively simple things that can be done to make the lives of poor people better, such as using a “ripper” plough, which allows rainfall to penetrate more deeply into the soil.

Small irrigation technologies such as treadle pumps and drip irrigation are also taking over from large-scale government and donor-driven irrigation projects that tend to benefit commercial farmers and rely on expensive pumps and imported spare parts from the West. “Africa is littered with failed irrigation projects,” says Dr Douglas Merrey of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network. “There have been very few cases in African agriculture where women have benefited from conventional irrigation projects,” he adds, explaining that projects are inevitably captured by men, who own the land rights and therefore the water rights. “While women are often represented on water committees, as a prerequisite for donor funding, once the donor goes, men take back control.”

Micro-technologies can be used by individual women, freeing them from reliance on others. But small technologies don’t always benefit women, says Simone Noemdoe of the University of the Western Cape’s integrated water resources management programme. Women need to take time off from their usual duties to learn to use and maintain these systems, but are often unable to find replacement labour to feed babies, clean their houses, cook food and chop firewood as well as take care of family members who are ill with Aids.

“Men just assume that someone else will do it,” says Noemdoe. That someone else is most often a girl child, who is forced to miss out on her education, and is then stuck in that cycle. “In the long run these technologies will ease the burdens of women, but will fail if there is not support at the outset.”

In South Africa women and girls still do most of the lugging of water in buckets and drums. “In Limpopo there is a project where women have started using treadle pumps to draw water from the river to water their food gardens, cutting the amount of time they spend carrying water from six hours a day to one hour,” says Merrey. But the cost of such pumps is very high in this region, up to five times more expensive than in India.

Drip irrigation targets the roots of plants and can save up to 80% of water by preventing evaporation. But, says Merrey, “it needs to be part of a long-term integrated development project, and not just dump-and-run as practised by some NGOs in this region”.

Users require proper training, and support on how to solve problems and make repairs. “A recent study found that of the drip kits distributed by NGOs as part of emergency relief in Zimbabwe, less than half were still being used by the second year and by the third year this figure had dropped to 10%,” says Merrey.

“I think a lot of NGOs, both local and international, have a vested interest in the relief business. They don’t seem to have the capacity to help people improve pro­ductivity on a continual basis: after treadle pumps, they should move to low-cost diesel pumps, and then get micro­finance to buy a small mill for grinding maize, and to buy fertilisers and so make some progress.”

The Kasungu district is three hours’ drive north of Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, and has been hardest hit by drought and the recent food crisis. Small boys on the roadside sell roasted rats (complete with teeth and tails) and birds on a stick: 100 kwacha for 10.

After several successive years of bad harvests, people simply don’t have any excess food to store for the lean months. World Food Programme distribution centres provide families with basic take-home rations of maize, pulses and cooking oil, which makes up an astonishing 80% of their food intake.

The road to the distribution point is thronged with people heading home on bicycles laden with bags of food, or carrying cans of oil on their heads. But in Mzumara village, on the banks of the Dwangwa river, the villagers produce their own food rations, thanks to an innovative irrigation project developed with the World Food Programme. It uses treadle pumps to bring water up from the river, and drip-irrigation pipes to direct the water exactly where it is needed.

Villagers have also dug a series of wells for drinking water and embarked on a winter cultivation programme, growing maize, pumpkins, beans and greens called denje.

“We had a big problem with hunger in this area,” says villager Christina Nkoma. “Ladies are hit first, because we are concerned about our children. Now we grow maize all year round.” They don’t produce enough of a surplus to sell, but no longer have to hire their labour out to neighbouring farms to get food. “We work in a family group and the men’s behaviour has changed — they are so busy now that they don’t go drinking outside, and the family is together.”

Nicole Johnston visited Malawi as a guest of the SADC Water Sector Programme

Climate change and water in Africa

Farmers in rural Swaziland may not have heard of the Stern report on climate change, but they already live the reality of the scenarios painted in its pages. Many have been forced to abandon farming as drought chokes the Lowveld region, says Dr Jonathan Matondo, professor of hydrology and water resources at the University of Swaziland.

“If crops fail for two years in a row because there is no rain, the farmers have no resources to plant again the next year. Their investment of labour, seed and fertilisers has been wasted, so crop production ceases.”

The implications for all of us, both urban and rural, are grave: “Families give up on farming and the young people move to town to look for jobs. Increased pressure is placed on sanitation, housing and healthcare in the cities and can lead to an increase in crime. This means African governments have less available assets, and become increasingly indebted to rich countries.”

Matondo’s research predicts that by 2075, Swaziland will be facing such a severe water crisis that even drinking water will be a scarce commodity in the winter months. “Make no mistake — this is the biggest disaster of the modern age and threatens the very existence of the human race.”

Climate change may see us battling not just the elements but also our neighbours. By 2025, the population of Southern Africa will be 320-million and as populations increase, available water will diminish. The potential for international conflicts to erupt over water resources is not far-fetched, given that Southern Africa has 15 trans-boundary river basins, and 70% of water resources in the region are shared by two or more countries.

While climate change is caused primarily by developed countries, Africa will suffer most, as we don’t have the resources or flexibility to adapt that rich countries do.

“Yes, the sea levels will rise and Holland will build dykes, but Dar es Salaam will be under water!” Matondo says. “African coastal cities will be abandoned and people will move inland, and all the infrastructure and investments we have so slowly built up will be destroyed. And of course, Cape Town’s airport runway will be submerged.”

Even if we stop polluting today, the effects of climate change will continue to be felt for the next 100 years. Already our droughts last longer, and floods and cyclones are more frequent and intense. We will need to adapt and use the water we have more efficiently. Matondo says it is vital to plan now to meet these challenges in future.

“We have to plan now to develop water-storage facilities like reservoirs to harvest the rainfall and save it to get us through the dry months. We also need to think about roof water harvesting. As cities become more built up and concreted over, there is increased run-off from developments like townhouse and shopping centres. We need to capture this before it gets into the polluted storm water drains and rivers.” — Nicole Johnston