Water and food in Africa

Over the course of these blogs it is apparent that issues surrounding water and food are anything but simple but rather a complex nexus between resource and man.  Main takeaways  1) Water is inherently political and is used to gain power or maintain control. As water is the most valuable resource  2) Look beyond the resource. The exploration of groundwater highlighted how large amount of aquifers does not necessarily mean an abundance of water or result in easy extraction process. There has to be a human face to the physicality of groundwater. issues such as infrastructure and research must be considered into the discussions around groundwater  3) Governance and politics are having great impact on water management but is being mistaken for a water availability or lack of rainfall issue.  Thanks for reading!

💧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...