Concluding Thoughts

As this blog comes to an end, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect back on my original aspirations for these blog posts: to look into the theme of water and politics in an African context. After reading Wainaina's article on 'How to Write About Africa', I did not want to make the grave mistake of generalising the continent, so I aimed to include a variety of case studies that covered a wide context variety. Overall, I believe that I have been able to meet my personal goal, and I am pleased with the topics that I addressed in my blog posts: relationships between the Nile riparian states (transboundary water management), dams and their political impacts, and how water shortages lead to violence in the South Sudanese and South African context. Further to this, throughout my blogging, I wanted to analyse to what extent water plays a role in African politics.

Water is an essential need in order to survive: we need it for domestic, agriculture and health purposes. Securing water sources in a continent where large proportions of the population are experiencing a lack of water is a significantly important issue that many governments are dealing with. Due to its colonial history, politics in an African context can be extremely volatile. The current borders and boundaries were drawn by European colonial powers without regards to the local geography and populations, and this has been the root-cause of many political tensions that currently exist in the continent. Water is inherently a major political issue as most of Africa’s water is stored as ground water. Most of the ground water sources cross transboundary borders, which forces nations to have some sort of political relationship (whether it be positive or negative) with each other.

I wanted to examine these delicate political relationships between African nations. The situation between the riparian states of the Nile shows how transboundary river borders brew political tensions, and highlights the upstream and downstream power struggle. However, the case of the Nile is perhaps a unique one where the downstream states actually have more say than upstream states. This is due to old colonial treaties that have been put in place by the Europeans, and they heavily favour Egypt. Essentially, Egypt has veto power over the Nile. This is a huge cause for political tension amongst the 10 other riparian states.

The purpose of this blog was to explore the relationship between water and politics in Africa. It is clear that the rich colonial history that Africa has is a root-cause to many of the ongoing political issues regarding water. Water is increasingly becoming a scarce commodity and it is therefore evident that it can no longer be separate from politics.

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South Africa's 'Day Zero'

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The Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam: Upstream-Downstream Power Relations on the Nile

With water appreciating in value, in 1979, former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat claimed that the only reason for Egypt to go to war was over water . The following decade, former Egyptian UN Secretary warned that the wars to come would be over the waters of the Nile . It is becoming clear that water as a means to obtain national security is becoming a priority for many riparian states of the Nile. In this blog post, I will talk about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), and the subsequent political relations Ethiopia has with the riparian states of the Nile. The Nile passes through eleven riparian countries: Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan,, Sudan, and finally Egypt before it empties out into the Mediterranean. Due to the Nile’s transboundary borders, many political issues brew and perhaps one of the most well known disputes on the river is between Egypt and Ethiopia. When Ethiopia announced their int...

Introductory Post

Welcome to this blog! I wanted to introduce the theme for my blog in this introductory post 'Water and Politics in Africa', and the significance of it to the discipline. Imagine someplace hot with vast savanna's that are filled up with herd animals and scrawny starving people. Yes you are correct, I was describing Africa. We often associate the continent as a single nation, where foreign entities implement a 'one fix for all' solution when solving the issues regarding water, and Wainaina's article on 'How to Write About Africa' is a truly engaging, comical and satirical piece, covering common stereotypes of the continent. The terminology used when writing about Africa has strong colonial roots, and misconceptions about the continent are ever-present in both academic and popular discourse. In strict economic terms, Africa is the poorest region with the lowest proportions of national populations with access to safe water, making it an interesting loca...

Water and Development: Africa

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