Water scarcity and groundwater use in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): A gendered perspective

This blog will highlight the discrepancies in current ways water scarcity is measured and highlight how water scarcity is not synonymous to water access. It will also underline how economic water scarcity facilitates gender disparities, through the arising inequalities surrounding groundwater use and access in Ethiopia. Many development goals seek to address water scarcity as the uneven spatial and temporal distribution of water, combined with population growth, urbanisation, industrialisation and intensive agriculture, has resulted in increased pressures on water resources globally (Demie et al, 2016).

Water Scarcity in Africa

Firstly, the definition of physical water scarcity and economic scarcity should be distinguished. Whilst the former can be a result of insufficient water available from the water cycle (Oki,2019), the latter occurs when there is a lack of access due to the failure of institutions to ensure adequate infrastructure for a regular supply of water (UNWater,2018). 

Africa’s arid climate areas such as southern and eastern Africa are in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which determines the annual seasonality of rainfall. A substantial proportion (70-90%) of this rainfall is renewed back into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration (Taylor,2016). This coupled with climate intensification will exacerbate the physical water scarcity in Africa (UN,2018 ).

 

Figure 1: Water scarcity as defined by the water stress index (WSI) source

 

Figure 1 shows that much of North Africa has a high  water stress index (WSI) compared to SSA. In reality,  ‘water-scarce’ countries, such as Egypt and Morocco, report near-universal (>90%) access to safe drinking water (Damkjaer an
d Taylor, 2017),  a substantially higher proportion compared to SSA (61%) (UN, 2016).

 This is because the WSI and the water to availability (WTA) index identify the extent of water scarcity in terms of mean annual river runoff (MARR) (Falkenmark, 1989). However, they inadvertently overlook seasonality and inter-annual variability in freshwater resources (Damkjaer and Taylor,2017), which are crucial, as El Nino events have evidently become more frequent (Gizaw and Gan, 2016). 

Figure 2: First quantitative map of groundwater storage source

In addition, the indexes disregard groundwater, which is a crucial water source in Africa (Figure 2). Its long residence time means that even in current arid regions, they may still have significant groundwater reserves. Sahara, for instance, is known to store about 5x10⁵ km³ of water beneath it (Ward and Robinson, 1989).

Groundwater in Africa: A case study of Ethiopia

All SSA countries - like Ethiopia - have the potential to increase their groundwater usage. However, for this to be done effectively, our understanding of groundwater use must go beyond per household use (Okotto et al, 2015) which inadvertently overlooks gender differences in groundwater use, particularly of women.

Women in Ethiopia fetching water from a borehole source

Nigussie et al, (2018), monitored groundwater use in two Kebeles (neighbourhoods) in Ethiopia. It was found that women in these regions have high concerns about the use and sustainability of groundwater resources, but are underrepresented in the decision-making process. But why so? Some key points are highlighted below:

 

1. Women in the Kebeles lack time for groundwater management, due to the heavy workload from domestic tasks (e.g. looking after village elders/children and collecting water) and agricultural tasks.

2. The male dominated culture discourages women from ascending to positions of power. On average, around 98% of the water user association (WUA) members in each Kebele are men, despite the responsibility women hold for irrigation and watering crops. 

3. Illiteracy and the resulting lack of confidence impacts willingness of women to participate. Many women in the Kebeles receive shortened education because of the local culture of young marriage. 

These points indicate that women’s participation in the local decision-making process is very limited, and often they are simply the subjects to change rather than voices in making change. Their exclusion from technological mechanism training is a key example of this (Nigussie et al. 2018).

Thus, for more effective groundwater management improvement on some of the fundamental aspects - like female illiteracy rates, and access to technological mechanism training - is clearly required to increase women’s  participation. 

 

The next post will further explore the role of women in water collection, and the wider implications it has to their lives.