Water and Politics

  Decentralisation isn’t code for corrupt-free water provision This entry will be centred around an article by Kenneth O. Nyangena, which examines privatisation of Kenyan water supplies, efforts here are to desegment the challenges and prospects privatisation has brought to Kenya. Opening water supplies up to market forces was once deemed the best solution to combating the lack of funds in developing countries such as Kenya and tackle corruption within the pubic management of water supplies, in the late 90s and onwards it was even part of negotiations and contractual for developing nations to adopt privatisation in order to receive international aid, a critical geographical political perspective on the economy would argue that privatisation agreements with developing countries had more to do with advancing the capitalist systems in the developed world.   Following a series of water management reformations from the introduction to a new political era in Kenya, notably the formation of

   Who should control our water? Climate change and soaring population growth are two of the many large challenge’s national governments, scientists and international bodies face in water resource management. Only 2.5% of the world’s water is freshwater safe for consumption, weather extremes have made this water supply unreliable with some areas experiencing flooding and the consequent contamination of water supplies and others experiencing drought on varying scales. These issues have brought complex challenges for water management, industry, agriculture and urbanising cities due to the aggravating demand. The UN estimates that during the last century water use has exceeded the rate of population growth (UN, 2006) this is attributed to net migration into cities causing hyper-urbanisation, expansion of industrial and agricultural sectors in effort to develop economically.   Two major challenges have resulted from the nexus of environmental and hydrpolitical management of water suppl

 ' The Future of the Nile’ Before a raging pandemic shook the world in early 2020, Egypt and Ethiopia were almost certainly headed to an intensified conflict over water resources, some even projecting war within the region. Over the last year, Ethiopia has suffered serious economic losses from the challenges presented by the pandemic, locust infestation challenging the agricultural sector and vey recently the severe violence between ethnic groups (Tigray and Oromo); Ethiopia most certainly cannot afford to go to war with Egypt. Effective water resource management and effective engagement of the international community in the creation of transboundary riparian law and resolution may ease the current tensions as well as the development of greater understanding of shared resources such as Transboundary Aquifer Mapping (TBA) (Altchenko and Villholth, 2013). What does the GERD mean for Egypt and why is Egypt prepared to go war over it? The stakes are arguably high for Egypt if Ethiopi

   “Egypt sees the dam as an existential threat to its survival, a concern shared, albeit to a s lesser extent, by Sudan. Ethiopia, on the other hand, regards the dam as vital for its energy needs.” (Chothia, 2020) Egypt and Ethiopia’s current conflict pertains to the aforementioned ‘water war’ presented in Frey (1993) in which Egypt perceives their goals as being blocked by Ethiopia and vice versa. The GERD undoubtedly challenges Egypt’s hegemonic position over the Nile resources and Ethiopia’s decision to build the GERD without consultation with other riparians may be viewed as a subversive yet passive revolt against the anachronistic, inequitable and injudicious allocations of resources by colonial powers. Challenging this power has been described as ‘an African Spring’ (Tawfik, 2016) pertaining to the uprising of the Arab spring in late 2010 challenging oppressive regimes, legislations and practices in the Maghreb. Whether

   ‘Renaissance’ In their efforts to securitize the limited freshwater resource of the Nile, Ethiopia and Egypt have found themselves in what can only be described as a ‘cold war’. Mr Trump in late October boasted that Egypt may “blow up” the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and tensions between the nations who share this vital resource are brewing (Chothia, 2020). This lends us to examine the origins, media analysis and motives behind this hydropolitical issue. The GERD is an important symbol of deep colonial roots entangled in present day hydropolitics. Transboundary water resource management in the continent is unlike another other shared resource in the continent or worldwide because historically “water law…[has only] been transboundary water law” (Lautze and girodano, 2005: pg.1054) pertaining to the inequitable and injudicious allocations of resources by colonial powers. The Nile basins riparian’s can be split into two; the upstream