Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

T H E W O R L D ’ S W A T E R C R I S I S : F I T T I N G T H E P I E C E S T O G E T H E R / 5 1 1Africa’s dependence on cereal imports is expected to continueto grow, with a widening net trade deficit. When grouped amongdeveloping regions generally, 60 percent of food production is fromnon-irrigated agriculture. A sizeable part of irrigation potential isalready used in North Africa and the Near East (where water is thelimiting factor), but a large part also remains unused in sub-SaharanAfrica. Such low proportions of irrigated land point tounderdeveloped infrastructure. From 1998 to 2030, arable land indeveloping countries is projected to increase by 13 percent, withthe bulk of the projected expansion foreseen to take place in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The expansion of irrigation isprojected to be strongest in North Africa, as well as in the NearEast. By 2030, North Africa will have reached critical thresholds ofwater availability for agriculture. The proportion of renewable waterresources allocated to irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa is likely toremain far below the critical threshold. In this region where noadditional land resources are available to exploit, wetlands representan attractive opportunity for agricultural development and cropproduction. Yields from inland capture fisheries, highest in Asia interms of total volume, remain significant in Africa as well.In many countries across central Africa, hydroelectric powergeneration – mostly from large-scale schemes – is dominant. Theeconomically exploitable potential is huge. Yet while Asia is likely to havequadrupled its installed capacity by 2010, Africa may achieve a moreconservative doubling. Sub-Saharan Africa has the fewest householdswith access to electricity, and among twenty-three sampled countries,none has more than 40 percent of households served. All countries withmore than 25 percent are in West Africa, and in all cases it is the richesthouseholds that are served. Outside of West Africa, virtually noneoutside of the richest 20 percent of the households have electricity.There is potential for small and micro-hydro schemes in sub-SaharanAfrica – particularly in support of rural households – where topographic,hydrologic and investment conditions are favourable.In most African countries, water for industry does not exceed5 percent of total withdrawals, and industrial value added (in termsof US$ per cubic metre [m 3 ] of water) is low by world standards.Exceptions are those countries with substantial resources ofminerals and precious stones, such as Botswana, Gabon, Namibia,and South Africa where mining adds an order of magnitude tovalue-added products and on bulk use. Similar orders of valueadded are achieved by the tourism industry.Over the past ten years, Africa has experienced nearly one third ofall water-related (flood and drought) events that occurred worldwide,with nearly 135 million people affected, 80 percent by drought. In thesame time period, deaths have exceeded 10,000, with some 98 percentof these due to flooding. Economic losses – almost always uninsured –have impacted significantly upon national economies, developmentstrategies and households. Economic losses from a poor Africanhousehold do not have to be high to be a very significant disruption.The bulk of financing comes from central government,supported by global and regional development banks, multilateraland bilateral institutions and, increasingly, debt relief. Africa,together with most other developing regions, is taking stepstowards full cost recovery, but has yet to embrace it fully.Within catchments where water is already under stress,agriculture is the dominant sector. Africa is the only region worldwidein which this is the case. Intersectoral sharing is thus dominated byagricultural water use. Africa south of the Sahara and the Nile Valleyare dominated by shared international river basins. Much of SaharanAfrica is dominated by shared international groundwater systems.Unlike many other regions where one country has a single sharedriver system, many African countries share upwards of two, even asmany as nine, international rivers.Despite the increased enrolment rates in formal education, manycountries remain impoverished by poor educational achievement. Fourout of every ten primary-aged children in sub-Saharan Africa do not goto school. Gross enrolment at the tertiary level stands at 5 percentcompared with 52 percent for developed countries. Up to 30 percentof African scientists are lost to the brain drain. Access to the mediaremains highly uneven, and the spread of the written press ishampered by lack of financial resources and high illiteracy rates. Thedigital divide is prevalent throughout the continent.AsiaThe picture in Asia reveals other dimensions of the water crisis. Only47 percent of the Asian population has improved sanitation coverage,by far the lowest of any region of the world. With just 31 percentcoverage, the situation is much worse in rural areas compared withurban areas where coverage is 74 percent. Water supply coverage is at81 percent, the second lowest after Africa. Like sanitation, coverage islower in rural areas (73 percent) compared with urban areas (93 percent).Because of the large population sizes in the region notably in Chinaand India, Asia accounts for the vast majority of people in the worldwithout access to improved services. Asia is home to 80 percent of theglobal population without access to improved sanitation, and almosttwo thirds do not have access to improved water supply. Currently,approximately two thirds of the Asian population live in rural areas, butthe balance is predicted to shift over the coming decades. By the year2015, the urban population is projected to represent 45 percent of theregion’s total, and should reach just over one half by 2025. Thispopulation growth will place enormous strains on alreadyoverburdened urban services. As described for Africa, if adequateprovision for sanitation in large cities is taken to mean a toiletconnected to a sewer, there is a lack of adequate provision in citiesthroughout Asia – far greater in fact than the improved coveragessuggest. Nearly all urban rivers and nearby water bodies have been