Water and food in Africa

💧What is groundwater  This video provides an introductory insight into the topic discussed in the blog.  Michelle Williams the Dean of the faculty at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public health wrote an emotive piece for the Financial Times with the crisis narrative around climate change as one of the main themes to Africa’s food and water security article. One of the solutions she proposes which she believes has not been utilised effectively is groundwater. "Expanding that (Amount of groundwater used) and investing in desalination plants could strengthen the region’s resilience against droughts and other climate shocks; most countries in Africa have enough groundwater to last decades, even if rainfalls diminish”. Figure 1: Tweet from the BGS on groundwater The tweet above evokes the same message as the article yet groundwater is being perceived as the solution to drought, however the complexities of groundwater means that whilst there are groundwater reserves in African...

📈Reading beyond trend lines The last blog ended with the the figure below showing precipitation and GDP seeming to have a relationship. The question posed was are African economies reliant on rainfall. The main aim of this blog is to recognise that most African countries agriculture is a large part of the GDP for example  37.57% of Ethiopias GDP  constitutes of agriculture however, rainfall cannot be deemed as the single most significant factor causing economic downturns and in fact political climates may be playing a significant role in the economies. The example of Zimbabwe will be used to demonstrate this point.  Figure 1: Data sourced from The World Bank . Chart made in Flourish.  GDP as a political tool  The IPCC reported that rainfall plays a significant role in reducing growth in Africa. Whilst rainfall is having impacts on GDP to a certain extent this is being used to cover up for poor governance in Zimbabwe. In 2000 the government of Zimbabwe...

  What was the cause of the 1983-85 famine in Ethiopia Figure 1: Bob Geldof in Ethiopia at the forefront of a new celebrity fundraising effort, sparked by the BBC’s report on Ethiopia’s famine. Source: The Guardian  Contrary to the what the papers and aid commercials reported about the Ethiopian famine, the ‘Biblical’ famine was not simply due to a drought and a late rainy season but rather do due a combination of natural and man-made factors. The components being drought, environmental deterioration such as soil erosion, population growth, underinvestment in agriculture, government policies and civil war . Whist drought is the main cause of famine the Ethiopian civil war and governmental politics played a significant role. In 1974 the overthrowing of emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown and a new military group called the Derg began to run the country. Whilst this happened in 1974 about ten years before the famine it is important to note how political instability can impa...

Throughout this blog I will be assessing the interconnected issues of water and food in Africa. The focus will be on dissecting western imaginaries surrounding Africa whilst also understanding the relationships modern day technology is having on changing food production. Food production would be nothing without water. My choice of topic for this blog largely comes from studying Human Ecology and Development which investigated the relationships between famines and water scarcity. Also, coming from Bangladesh, the stories of the 1974 famine has always been circulated with different narratives, some elders recall the famine as being a time of no food whilst my grandmother recalls the famine not directly caused due to lack of food but because of political unrest and colonial powers over rice grains. These narratives around water and food piqued my interest into the African context since the largest famines in the 21 st century have been in the African continent. The real question is, wh...