Water, Politics and Africa

Welcome back to this edition of  Water, Politics and Africa ! This week I will take a look at the role of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), two organisations that are deeply involved in many hydrology- and development-related projects in Africa, even though many people know very little about them and their interests. Introduction If you have little idea about what these two institutions are and what exactly they do, then do not worry - most people feel the same. Having immense funds at their disposal and being involved in all sorts of conferences, development programmes and government deals while having close to no public image, to ordinary people they may appear like suspicious shadow organisations that influence all sorts of international developments. World Bank and IMF - What are they? According to the online investment encyclopaedia Investopedia, "The IMF exists primarily to stabilize exchange rates, while the World Bank’s goal is to reduce pov

Welcome back to this week’s edition of Water, Politics and Africa where we continue looking into the privatisation of domestic water supply in South Africa, and then compare the results of these policies in South Africa and the East African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Water Supply Privatisation in Johannesburg, South Africa (continued) The changes Johannesburg Water implemented to how water was supplied and billed in the predominantly black townships meant that many families could simply no longer afford their water. While South Africa was the first country to declare it a constitutional right that every citizen have “sufficient food and water” ( Section 27(1)(b) ), the exact amount was never specified, and therefore an average 8 people per household were assumed when setting the free allowance of 6,000l per month. However, this estimate is far lower than the reality, as Jabu Molobela, a resident of the Soweto township, warns in an interview:      “6000 liters

Hi everyone,   I just want to make a quick post about a documentary I am watching,  The Future of Water , made by Norwegian geographer Terje Tvedt in 2007. It is divided into three one-hour segments and covers a diverse range of topics all related to the political and economic future of water. There are many case studies on Africa (including water privatisation in Johannesburg!) but also on very different places like Norway, Pakistan, Tibet and the Netherlands. If you want to find out what will happen in the Indus valley when the Himalayan glaciers melt, how Egypt is building a 'second Nile' in the desert, and even how mismanagement of water might have led to the collapse of ancient Mayan civilisation, give it a watch! The documentary is available on Netflix, and you can watch the trailer  here . Source