Water and Politics

Africa's Exponential Temperature Rise from 1980  Like most African nations, Ethiopia strives for a water-secured future, exemplified by its journey to build a secure water system. However, these endeavours will prove futile if climate change is ignored. Climate change has long faced scepticism and politicisation; notably,  former President Donald Trump  once dismissed it as a hoax in 2018. Conflicting information further undermines public trust and hampers support of climate-related policies ( Smith & Mayer, 2018 ). The 2018 Gallup poll (Fig1) underscores limited awareness, with 39% perceiving global warming as generally exaggerated . Fig1: Gallup Poll: Public Opinion on Global Warming. In 2022, the World Meteorological Organization documented 80 climate hazards in Africa. The State of the Climate in Africa 2021 revealed heightened water stress, notably contributing to the Algerian's wildfires and the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in 40 years , where 5...

Picture: Handpump Ethiopia's rural water strategy (RWS) is based on 'the development orthodoxy' principles ( Page, 2003 ) - community management. It entrusts users with sustainable operations and maintenance (O&Ms) responsibility ( Ludi et al., 2013 ;  Hutchings et al., 2015 ), aligning with governmental bodies and NGO's promotion of local empowerment. Despite being a cost-efficient solution for authorities, sub-Saharan revealed a third of RWS systems were non-functional ( Baumann, 2006 ). The 2016 El Niño crisis in Ethiopia exposed the inadequacy of the RWS, with 50% of hand-dug wells and 42% of other water points non-functional, leaving 43% of the population below the emergency six-litre threshold ( Florence, 2019 ) - underscoring the limitations in RWS’ "informality and voluntarism" ( Moriarty et al., 2013 ).  To address RWS failure, we examine Hutchings et al. ( 2015 ) study on 174 successful community management cases worldwide. Notably, among the 72 ...