Introduction: Writing about Africa

I begin this blog by mentioning  Wainaina’s (2005)satiric essay ‘How to Write about Africa’ which is both engaging and brutally honest and is worth mentioning at the start of this blogging experience, as his ideas provide somewhat of a framework for what follows.  His essay highlights the whitewashing of all things African related from travel writing (sunsets, wide empty spaces) to politics (corrupt politicians,) to western benevolence – ‘without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed’ ( Wainaina, 2005). As this blog is writing about Africa, it seemed only fair to engage with this piece of writing in the context of water and food and its impact on development.  

According to Jones and Van Der Walt (2004), water is at the ‘heart of many of Africa’s problems’. An increasingly ‘scarce resource’  (Mehta, 2003: 5066), water in the context of Africa, is closely linked to drought, famine, starvation, corruption and poverty. The extent to which the continuing legacy of colonialism, that is neo-colonialism – the ‘regressive impact of unregulated forms of aid, trade and foreign investment’ (Segell, 2009: 189) contribute to growing water scarcity in the continent of Africa and in particular, Sub-Saharan Africa where over 300 million people do not have access to safe drinking water (Jones and Van Der Walt, 2004)is an important line of analysis and one that will feature heavily in this blog. The rapid rate of urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa, e.g.over a course of 15 years Ethiopia's urban population nearly tripled- it grew by 18 million, puts increased pressure on water supplies as well as an increased demand which is made worse perhaps by the the mismatch between uneven water resources and the distribution of people.  As such, I will be exploring the impact of urbanisation in African cities on water alongside factors such as neo-colonialism and agriculture.

Lastly, I wish to reiterate the ideas of (Mehta, 2003: 5066), that ‘scarcity is both real and constructed… the real aspects of scarcity – dwindling groundwater aquifers, increased salinity... [and it’s constructed nature] through political and policy processes’- a false discourse on scarcity perhaps?  Water related issues are therefore implicated in power processes and geopolitical relations and as water and food are inextricably linked, increased water scarcity means increased food insecurity.  Shortages in freshwater therefore have a direct impact on food production and I emphasise that the global water crisis is not that water is scarce in absolute terms but rather, it is related to the ‘quantity of water required for food production’  Molden et al, 2007).