An Economic Geographer’s Journey to Understanding Water and Food in Africa

Posts

5. COP28 and Sustainable Climate Finance

As previously highlighted, African countries have generally struggled to achieve food security due to increasingly hostile climatic conditions , inadequate water security , violent conflicts , persistently low agricultural productivity , and insufficient investments in agricultural infrastructure . This post addresses the latter three, focusing on two key developments from the recent COP28 climate summit in Dubai and their role in complementing existing institutions and policies: 1. The COP28 UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action . 2. The Africa and Middle East SAFE Initiative . Firstly, the global declaration signed by 134 countries, including 25 African countries, places agricultural systems transformation at the forefront of the global climate agenda with expectations of enhancements to food systems, climate resiliency development, emission reductions, and reduction in global hunger ( AfDB, 2023a ). The declaration further suppor...

4. Virtual Water Trade

This post builds upon previous discussions of water scarcity and food security through exploring virtual water trade (VWT) as a potential solution to insufficient infrastructure and agriculture yield gaps in Africa. Despite Africa’s relative abundance of renewable freshwater resources at approximately 6800 m 3 per person per year ( Odularu, 2009 ), high temporal and spatial water resource variability accompanied with scarce irrigation infrastructure and dam capacity ( Konar and Caylor, 2013 ) has resulted in increased agriculture vulnerability to climate change and variability ( Boko et al., 2007 ). Furthermore, agricultural yields have generally been low across Africa, such as in Sub-Saharan Africa ( Bjornlund et al., 2020 ), due to underinvestment and a lack of incentive in production, research, development, and extension services ( FAO, 2009 ), with rising temperatures having already claimed a 34% decline in Africa’s agricultural productivity growth since 1961 ( WMO, 2022 ). T...

3. Water and Food Security: A Case Study of Community-Based Water Resources in Cameroon

In this post, I build upon the previous analysis of water scarcity and famine through a case study of community-based water development and management in Cameroon. I begin with a broad overview of the Energy-Water-Food Nexus relationship before zooming into a case study of Kumbo in North-West Cameroon. I then progressively zoom out, analyzing performance indicators of five community water supply networks across Cameroon, before finally evaluating a global-scale review of success factors in rural community water supply management. There is an intricate link between water, food, and energy security ( Smajgl et al. , 2016 ). All three are deeply interconnected in that each resource intricately affects consumption of the others ( Hadian and Madani, 2013 ; Bryan et al. , 2015 ; Hafeez et al. , 2020 ) as illustrated in the Energy-Water-Food Nexus in Figure 1. Figure 1: Energy-Water-Food Nexus ( Smajgl et al. , 2016 ) . Water is fundamental to the Energy-Water-Food Nexus and ...

2. Water Scarcity and Famine in East Africa

In this post, I build upon the previous overview through an analysis of water scarcity and famine in East Africa. In defining scarcity, one of the most commonly utilized metrics is Falkenmark’s water stress index (WSI) ( Falkenmark et al. , 1989 ). The metric originally measured water scarcity based on the number of people sharing a standard one million cubic meter unit of water per year, with the thresholds for ‘water stress’ and ‘water scarcity’ at 600 and 1000 respectively ( Falkenmark et al. , 1989 ). Figure 1 illustrates this definition of water stress and scarcity applied to Africa. Figure 1: Water scarcity across Africa on the basis of the water stress index. The thresholds for water stress and water scarcity are <1700 cubic m/capita/year and <1000 cubic m/capita/year respectively ( FAO AQUASTAT, 2014 cited in Damkjaer and Taylor, 2017 ). However, these thresholds were context-specific to an industrialized semi-arid country (Israel) and have since b...

1. A short Introduction to the Demographics and Climate of Africa

Welcome to the blog. To contextualize my perspective: I am an Economics and Geography undergraduate with no prior personal or academic experience related to Africa. Therefore, my perspective of Africa will be formed primarily through the culmination of research and reports from academia, local and intergovernmental organizations. Wary of the potential pitfalls in studying and writing about Africa from the perspective of a largely western-influenced education system, as satirically critiqued by Wainaina ( Wainaina, 2005 ), I will strive to incorporate research and insights from both leading African academics and local voices living through the experience. I acknowledge that although the task of forming a perspective on the heterogeneously complex topic of water and food in Africa may appear incredibly daunting, it is imperative given the continent’s growing strategic importance and impact globally. Africa is the second largest continent in the world, comprising of 54 countries and 1...