Hydropolitical conflict across Africa

In this blog, I will exclusively explore the local hydro-political conflict that has ensued in Namwala District, a rural district located in Southern Zambia within the Kafue River Basin ( Schelle and Pittock, 2006 ).  The Kafue is one of the major tributaries to the Zambezi River with a catchment that occupies some 20% of Zambia’s total land area. Conflict, in this instance, is on a local scale as governance is represented through  the  full council in Namawala District and the majority of vested interests are domestic of those of local farmers and pastoralists ( Funder et al, 2010 ).  Figure 1 - Showing the geographical location of Namwala District in Zambia The provenance of such conflicts can be attributed to two main reasons; the discrepancy in developed water infrastructures in rural areas and insufficient coordination and management of water sources. Unfortunate seasonality in rainfall makes water distribution and conservation extremely varia...

The Pangani River Basin (PRB) covers an area of about 43, 650km2, mostly in Tanzania with approximately 5% in Kenya ( IUCN, 2003 ). For its 3.7 million Tanzanian inhabitants its water and arable land is important and the conflicts surrounding the supply, demand and use of the basin itself are numerous and multifaceted in nature. The number of players and those with stakes or vested interest in the basin's resources are high, making the coordination and ability to please everyone extremely tenacious. Figure 1 - Map of the Pangani River Basin The majority of many hydro political water conflicts are based around the concept of scale, whereby the scale and size of those water players involved determines the power and tract that they hold overall. In this case, conflict of scale is prevalent due to the presence of industrial interests and local and small scale interests. Industrial interests include hydropower supplied by the Tanganyika Electric Supply Company (TANESCO), who ...

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LWHP) is a binational proposal with the aim of supplying South Africa with water from the Lesotho highlands, which would be mutually beneficial to both parties. Lesotho wanted to harness its copious 'white gold' water supply into financial gain, by supplying the water-scarce South Africa with a valuable commodity ( Maro, 2011 ). This project, however was greatly overshadowed by hydro political conflict, whereby cooperation between the two riparian states was centred principally on the mutual gain of each's political elite (Mwangi, 2007) . Figure 1 - Map showing the LWHP and its context in South Africa  At the crux of this hydro political conflict, is the concept of water scarcity, where insufficient supply meets copious demand, which perpetually results in conflict among and within nations ( Gleick, 1993) . The project was first suggested by the British High Commissioner of Lesotho, when the country was still under British rule, a...

Welcome to my blog!!  This site will endeavour to explain and analyse, in a short, sweet and succinct manner, the nature of hydropolitical conflict and how said conflict comes about across Africa, with a particular focus on  eastern and southern Africa.  In its simplest sense, the term "water conflict" describes any disagreement or dispute over or about water, where external social, economic, legal, political or military intervention is needed to resolve the problem (Ashton, 2007) . My site is also not restricted to purely African  hydropolitics,  other areas in Africa and even across the globe will be used as comparative examples, as hydropolitics is such a wide spread and prolific phenomenon.  I first became fascinated with water conflicts when I was 15, learning about a squatter settlement near Nairobi, Kenya, called Kibera which has a complex network of water supply systems (Wesangula, 2016) . This case study really emphasised to me the ...