Water wars?

Water has been nicknamed ‘blue gold’ and ‘oil of the 21^st century’ which emphasises its ever-increasing rarity and the growing recognition of its importance. However, unlike oil, water has no substitute, which makes it all the more valuable – particularly since its essential not only for day-to-day survival but for sustaining manufacturing and energy generation (Engelke and Sticklor 2015).

Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General, stated in his Millennium Report that climate change ‘may increase social and political tensions in unpredictable but potentially dangerous ways’ (Annan 2000: 44). So far we have seen that many African regions face a future of increasing variability in rainfall patterns and prolonged droughts, and these climatic effects, combined with growing populations and a desire for development, create a situation of growing demand for a declining water supply. Therefore it seems inevitable that one way Annan’s warning will unfold is through conflicts over water resources across Africa: so-called ‘water wars’ (Gleick 1993). These conflicts can occur at different scales, such as localised regional clashes at the village level, intra-national disputes, and transboundary international disagreements (Gleick 1993); this blog post will specifically explore transboundary disputes.

Countries can be fiercely protective of their water supplies, particularly if they support industries that are sustaining the economy, and debates over water are often emotionally charged (Ashton 2002). Africa is considered particularly vulnerable to a rise in conflicts due to its unstable political history and past wars over ethnic tensions and natural resources (Adano and Daudi 2012). A legacy of African colonialism is that national borders were assigned arbitrarily, creating a situation where large water bodies are shared between a number of countries: 90% of Africa’s freshwater resources are found in rivers and lakes shared between at least two countries (Goulden et al. 2009). This results in frequent struggles over access to water supplies, and tensions are especially high when upstream river users exploit water resources without consideration for the downstream users (Ashton 2002).

One site of transboundary water tensions is the Nile, which flows through eight North African arid countries, and is predicted to have a reduced flow in the second half of the century due to less rainfall and higher evaporation rates (Beyene et al. 2010). It provides 97% of Egypt’s water supply, but upstream use of the Nile leaves Egypt in a vulnerable position. Egypt believes it has historic rights to the Nile and has tried to cement this through treaties in 1929 and 1959 that ensure it has access to 87% of the river flow as well as the power to reject proposed upstream projects. However, in 2010, other Nile Basin countries signed a deal allowing them to bypass Egypt’s approval (The Guardian 2015).

The Nile River Basin (Source: World Bank)

To put this defiance into practice, Ethiopia is currently constructing the Grand Renaissance dam across the Blue Nile, which has caused huge tensions with Egypt, as Egypt has claimed that the dam will severely lower the level of the Nile and reduce Egypt’s water supply by over 10bn kilolitres. In a fiery speech in 2013, the Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi vowed to ‘defend each drop of Nile water with our blood’ – a clearly violent discourse (Kingsley 2013).

Another example of a transboundary water conflict is the case of the Muene River, which spans Mozambique and Zimbabwe. A dumpsite adjacent to the Zimbabwean stretch of the river releases chemicals into the water body, and this has caused cholera outbreaks and the death of the fish population downstream at the Chicamba dam in Mozambique. Climate change has increased the persistence of drought in the region, and the ongoing drought has worsened the issue as lower river levels mean a higher concentration of pollutants in the available water. These issues are often left unresolved because there is an inefficient governance framework to effectively deal with the problem – if the issue is reported to the South African Development Community (SADC) secretariat, the most the SADC will do is recommend that the damaging activity should stop, but this is not enforced (Kings 2016).

Chicamba dam, Mozambique (Source: Hydrokast)

However, the notion of an increase in ‘water wars’ has been thought of by many as simplistic, because in reality countries agree to cooperate through agreements and treaties, rather than resorting to violence (Niasse 2005). There is also a risk that claims of climate conflicts promote ‘climate reductionism’ and relinquishes governments of their responsibility to prevent these problems (Kuo 2016).

So what role can governments play?

Transboundary water conflicts can be bypassed with greater cooperation between water users through the creation of frameworks and agreements, such as the 1991 Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, which includes principles of ‘equitable utilisation’ and the ‘prevention of significant harm to other states’ to ensure that no country benefits at the expense of another user (Gleick 1993). In addition, collaboration between nations is beneficial, whether this is to explore techniques on how water can be managed more sustainably, or to share climatic and hydrological data to increase transparency (Niasse 2005).

Furthermore, political stability makes transboundary water wars less likely; you only need to look to the Danube basin in Europe to see how 19 countries have been able to peacefully share the water resource due to their stable democratic governments (Chang 2013). Of course, other factors play a role, such as having access to funding and knowledge for more advanced water management technologies which is limited in many African nations, but a stable government is a necessity.

Increased water stress does have the potential to trigger more international disputes – but it can also provide an opportunity for greater unity, by forcing countries to work together to achieve maximum benefits for all. This was the case with the Lake Chad Basin: issues over water management actually boosted cooperation between Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon (Adams 2016). The ultimate goal, as Ashton (2002) wrote so neatly, is for water management strategies to ‘be guided by the values of sustainability, equity, mutual cooperation, and the attainment of optimal benefit for society’.