Access to water is recognized as a fundamental right of human beings by the United Nations who listed it among one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In Africa, the water problem is acute. The continent lacks in equipment in terms of access to safe water and sanitation. This is also where rivers are the least adapted for hydropower projects and where irrigated agriculture is the least developed.
Africa, therefore, has a very important potential for development in terms of sustainable water management. Stressing the importance of water resources for hydropower production, irrigation and adequate service to a rapidly growing urban population without compromising the preservation of its rich aquatic ecosystems has become an important issue in Africa.
Needs for water projects in different countries
South Africa is one of the best equipped countries in terms of water infrastructure. Yet, at the end of apartheid, it accumulated the problems of the "first" and the "third" world: a high level of pollution and diseases associated with lack of access to water such as cholera.
The Government of the African National Congress, in power since the election of N. Mandela in 1994, decided to challenge the water management of the apartheid regime, with a new policy summarized by the slogan "Some, For All, For Ever". The challenge was to reconcile the protection of the environment by reducing waste, while giving access to water to the black population with a view to preserving the long-term resources. Fifteen years later, the results of this new policy are mixed. Many households have benefited from improved access to drinking water, but at the same time, waste by white farmers-exporters and pollution levels remain a concern.
In Sudan, the problem is very different, because the infrastructure is currently very limited. What is important for this very poor country, which acquired the ability to equip itself with oil revenues and the Chinese aid, is to enhance its water resources, including the Nile, which hasn't been done since independence in 1956. In this context, any development brings significant benefits in the short term: the only dam of Marawi, which opened in April 2009 on the Nile 300 miles north of Khartoum, can double the country's electricity production. The following ones, currently under construction, will enable Sudan to export. But the environmental consequences such as the interests of local populations have been neglected. This obviously raises the question of sustainability of these investments, especially with a growing number of political conflicts in Sudan on the sharing of future profits.
Expanding access to water: solutions exist
As shown on the previous two examples, technical solutions exist. All problems can technically be solved and they derive from sometimes inadequate management methods and the lack of funding. The three pillars of the solution to water in Africa lie in progressiveness, diversity and solidarity.
Progressiveness means that we should not try to build everything at once. In irrigated agriculture as in access to drinking water, past experience has shown that major “turnkey” projects did not give satisfactory results after few years. It is best to start slowly and gradually build sustainable networks, even if it means that there would be temporarily inequalities between districts or between regions. It is important to remember that the Northern countries also needed several decades to achieve universal coverage for water access and sanitation.
Diversity, or, in other words, "One Size Does not fit all." There will be no single model for both the adopted technical solutions and the management methods. The "water problems" of each country are different and therefore, there must be differentiated management methods to deal individually with specific problems. The participation of affected populations is, therefore, necessary.
Solidarity at last. This solidarity must have, of course, the international level, including providing the necessary funding to local projects. But it is also organized at the local level, because the mutual aid for access to water is a tradition in almost all African cultures. In Sudan, where it is customary to leave water available to any passers-by in front of your home as it is in South Africa, where water for basic needs is distributed free by the public network. Models of water development should be based on the solidarity so that “water for all” becomes a reality in Africa.
